tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Sep 07 19:37:07 2003

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Re: Describe Klingon!

d'Armond Speers, Ph.D. ([email protected]) [KLI Member] [Hol po'wI']


As far as I know, the terms "poly-guttural dialect" and "adaptive syntax"
are meaningless in linguistics.  (I have a Ph.D. in linguistics.)  It was
basically Paramount's way of saying "we're going to do whatever we want, so
don't expect to hear good Kllingon on the show."

How you describe Klingon depends on what you want to emphasize about the
language.  You can talk about its word-order (it's an OVS language); you can
talk about its morphology (it's an agglutinative language), you can talk
about its origins (it's a constructed language).  And so on.  Or, how about
"it's a constructed, agglutinative OVS language."  :)

--Holtej 'utlh

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Hakuohalakahiki Dei nucis naHQun El dios de piņa"
<[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, September 07, 2003 6:23 PM
Subject: Describe Klingon!


> In the first episode of Enterprise, Captain Archer says:
> "An empire of warriors with 80 poly-guttural dialects constructed on an
> adaptive syntax."
>
> Linguisticaly, does this describe tlhIngan Hol?
>
> If not, how would I describe Klingon to someone?
>
> Thank you,
> ~naHQun
>
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