tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jun 03 09:49:49 1996

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Re: Klingon writing

I finally got around to asking my wife, a professional calligrapher and 
occasional graphic artist, her opinion of the pIqaD relative to some of 
the discussion on the list recently.  Her comments:

1. The pIqaD as we have them on the KLI disk could be produced with a 
brush, but a calligraphy pen would be better.  A calligraphy pen has a 
flat blade (not like the rounded tip of a fountain pen), and by varying 
the angle the blade meets the paper, twisting the barrel and changing the 
pressure on the paper, you can get all sorts of effects.  You could make 
the pointed tips and square corners of the pIqaD shapes.  You'd probably 
make up each letter from several strokes, but a good calligrapher can 
blend these strokes into a single letterform.

2. pIqaD probably were not stamped out.  Stamping only works well for 
letterforms made from one or two standard elements (eg., cuneiform, which 
uses only wedges [one end of your stylus] and circles [the other end]).  
The pIqaD don't seem to be made of such simple elements.

3.  It's traditional to base fonts on admired "exemplars": the Times 
Roman font, for example, is based on the Roman Capitals of Trajan's 
Arch.  It's likely that the pIqaD we have are the type version of some 
admired calligrapher's work from the past.  It could even be a 
deliberately "archaic" version, like English Gothic (ye olde pIqaD).  The 
average Klingon's writing need bear no more resemblence to it than my 
handwriting resembles a typewriter's output.  Besides, I would be 
surprised if the average klingon wanted to spend a lot of time in forming 
letters.

4. As to how Klingons actually write, who knows?  But in an early edition 
of HolQeD (2:1?) there was an article attempting to dissect the pIqaD 
down to their essential elements: what must be present for each letter to 
be recognizable.  so long as the essential elements of the pIqaD are 
there, the letterforms might vary a lot, depending on the medium (paper, 
stone, view screen, pen, brush, marker, etc.).  I've used the suggestions 
in this article to make a "monoline" version of the pIqaD and also a 
handwritten, manuscript version (*much* easier to produce the letters!).  It 
would be my guess that the klingons have done something similar for 
day-to-day use.

-- ter'eS

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