tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Oct 23 11:03:47 1996

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Re: Words from the wild (was Re: Par'Mach is ...)

Most of the folks who take one side or another in the issue of what IS or
IS NOT cannonical will acknowledge that there is a certain bias involved,
one which reflects creative control.  Historically this seems to go back to
Roddenberry himself who (so the story goes) declared all the Trek fiction
coming out from Pocket Books as noncanonical, allegedly because he had no
creative control over it.

With that said, I want to respond to Joel's response to the argument that
one can distinguish between something being canonical as it relates to STAR
TREK and something being canonical only with respect to KLINGON.  If I read
Joel correctly, he views the latter as a subset of the former and considers
the distinction an arbitrary and meaningless one.  In practice, this would
mean that since "par'mach" is presented to us in an episode of STAR TREK it
must be canonically Klingon, just as everything in the episode must be
canonically STAR TREK.

And now, my response.  Let's split some hairs.  I'm quite willing to agree
with Joel (and anyone else) that "par'mach" is canonical Klingon, for the
various reasons stated already.  However, I'll draw a distinction between
"Klingon" -- meaning any and all languages, dialects, idiolects, pidgins,
and creoles used by native citizens of the Klingon Empire -- and what I
think is generally intended by students of the language when they use the
term "Klingon," specifically the imperial dialect presented by Okrand in
TKD, perhaps more clearly referred to as tlhIngan Hol.

It has long been the practice of many members of the KLI to moan and sigh
at STAR TREK episodic malapropisms, muttering under our breath annoying
remarks such as "oh look, another dialect," but if we take a presecriptive
view of tlhIngan Hol we have no other choice.

Does that mean that words like "par'mach" shouldn't be used in tlhIngan
Hol, particularly when -- as Joel very correctly points out -- they will be
known and recognized by many people who don't know any grammatical Klingon
(i.e., tlhIngan Hol)?  Fortunately, I believe the answer to that is readily
at hand.  Many languages frequently borrow from both near and distant
languages (etymologically speaking) for terms which that other language
might express more clearly.  When Dax tells us that "par'mach" like the
Klingon word for love, only much more passionate, she's doing just that.
One might arguably substitute the word "amor" and the language name
"French" in Dax's sentence and achieve the same end.  My point being that
we can and do bring in words from other languages on a regular basis,
without pretending that the borrowed word "becomes" a part of our language.


A number of people have been doing this all along anyway, mixing elements
from John Ford's "klingonaase" (most notably the honorifics) in with their
use of tlhIngan Hol.  Do I like it?  Not particularly.  Do I understand it
(both in terms of the meaning, and the rationale behind it)?  Sure.

So... take home message: since "par'mach" was given to us in an episode of
DSN it's canonical, a part of the Star Trek universe.  Is it canonical
KLINGON?  That depends on what you mean by the word.  It's certainly not
canonical tlhIngan Hol.  Until Okrand abdicates, it is the position of the
KLI that he is the only source of canonical tlhIngan Hol.

Lawrence


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:: Dr Lawrence M Schoen, Director   :: The KLI is a nonprofit ::
:: The Klingon Language Institute   :: tax exempt corporation ::
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