tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri May 24 16:50:47 1996

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Re: tlhIngan version of <Huchmay' Quj>

>>>This may be old news, but has anyone put together a Scrabble game using
>>> pIqaD?
>
>> Actually, one has. I quote from the catalog the inimitable Glen Proechel
>> (a.k.a. "pIn tIn") sent me a month ago:
>>
>> PACHMU': The Warrior's Sqr'bl
>
>Long before Glen did this we had a small game running here on this mailing
>list
>(I believe Matt Whiteacre was handling it).  I even did up a continuously
>updated GIF of the gameboard as it went on.  The game lost steam,and was never
>finished, but did generate some discussion of letter frequencies in Klingon.

>Lawrence

Actually I was playing Glen's version of "Warrior" Scrabble at about the
same time the Matt's game got started on the KLI listserv.  I believe that
the two began independently at about the same time.  The two sets of tiles
differed a lot in my opinion, with rather different choices for the limited
number of highest point ones (Glen's were tlh and Q for 10 points; Matt's
were tlh and ng I believe.  Neither one of the games included anywhere near
enough *'*s.)  The two biggest problems I saw with either of them was that
there really aren't any letters that are used much less often in Klingon,
as in English: Q, X and Z as opposed to t, r and s, for example.  In
Klingon the letters are all used with about the same frequency, as far as I
can see.  The other problem with both of the two (Glen's and Matt's
original offerings) is that there are far too many three letter words (I
count gh, tlh, ch, etc. as individual letters).  This makes it much harder
to find opportunities to play off an earlier word on the board than it is
in the English version (and I gather in most Earth languages as well).
Neither of these problems, of course, are the fault of Glen or Matt. [I
picture Dr. Okrand as enjoying Scrabble in it's *most* challenging form,
which should be obvious by the way he designed tlhIngan Hol.]

I will admit that I haven't seen either of their games recently and maybe
they have been improved, but unless the basic premise of how Scrabble is
played is revised a bunch, in my opinion, it is a difficult thing to try to
"translate" into the Warrior tongue.

wIghbe'

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