tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Jul 03 21:02:37 1998

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Re: Pro & {qon} (Was Re: KLBC - pach puqloD)

From: Steven Boozer <[email protected]>

>Does this imply that Klingon music - especially opera (ghe'naQ) which is in
>{no' Hol} after all - is viewed as primarily traditional and not an
original
>creation by the composer, who simply uses pre-existing themes and other
>cultural elements?

In the human cultures I'm aware of, the person who devises a song is
respected.  In Klingon, the person who captures a song out of wherever it
exists is respected.  Different reasons, same effect.

>Note that Okrand does NOT say that {qon} is used ONLY for songs.

Neither did I.

I said that {qon} can be thought of as English "compose" only when referring
to songs (and probably poetry, maybe music).  In English, you might also
"compose" a letter to your friend, but do Klingons consider the text of that
letter to be floating around in that same mysterious place as unwritten
songs do?  Okrand only talks about songs being found there.  If we assume
that letters to friends are NOT floating around in this Unwritten-Song-Zone,
then a Klingon writing a letter to his friend is not "recording" a letter
from there.  I don't know what he'd call it, maybe "making marks" {ghItlh},
maybe "devising" {'ogh}, maybe something else.

{qon} does not equal "compose."  In fact, {qon} does not really MEAN
"compose."  It means "record."  When a Klingon writes a song, he honestly
considers himself to be "recording" that song.  I don't think he'd consider
himself to be "recording" a letter to a friend.  I don't see such things as
being in the USZ.

>His HolQeD
>article was addressing musical terms, which simply provided him the
>opportunity to comment on the word. I would think one could also {qon}
>legends/myths (wIch), folk stories (lut), traditions (lurDech), teachings
>(paQDI'norgh) of Kahless, etc.

Perhaps.

> All of this oral literature already exists
>out there among the masses, it is merely being "recorded" on paper (or
>whatever) for posterity.

No, that's not what he was talking about.  If a song is devised, sung, and
taught to others without ever having been written down (Okrand says "written
down and/or taught to others"), it has still been {qon}'d.


>In theory one is capturing and preserving them, not
>editing and changing them. I imagine that dictionaries are also "recorded",
>since the words are, as Okrand said in HolQeD, "not composed by
>anybody--they're just out there, waiting to be hunted down, trapped, and
>logged..."

I could certainly accept this, since it does mean "record."

>I think it's safe to use {qon} in somewhat wider contexts than SuStel's
>belief of recording only songs,

That is not my belief.  You only record something which is already there to
be found.  My "belief" is that your average bit of writing, like e-mail
messages to this list, are not part of this mass of stuff.

SuStel
Stardate 98505.5

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