tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Jul 18 02:03:52 2004

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Re: canon pIqaD

David Trimboli ([email protected]) [KLI Member] [Hol po'wI']

>From: [email protected]
>
>In TKD section 1.1:
>"Those few Klingons who pronounce {b} as {m} would say Klingon {baH} <fire 
>(a
>torpedo)> and {maH} <we> the same way, and have to memorize which word is
>spelled which way."
>
>This tells me that the system of writing tells the reader how a word is
>pronounced.

To some extent, perhaps.  But this sort of thing happens all the time in 
English with, for instance, "to," "too," and "two."  You pronounce it the 
same way in most instances (although the first one is sometimes pronounced 
"tuh" or "t'" or even "d" when it's not focused on; e.g., "I haf t' go d' 
th' store."), and you have to memorize which one is spelled which way.  And 
English has anything but a standardized phonetic alphabet.

>Writing systems like hieroglyphics, etc does not tell the reader how to
>pronounce the words.  Such a system would require that we memorize each 
>word
>anyways.

Right.  The bit that you quote above suggests that pIqaD is not logographic, 
but doesn't go so far as to imply that it's alphabetic or syllabic or 
anything else.  Another line in TKD says

          There is a native writing system for Klingon (called {pIqaD})
     which seems to be well suited to the various dialects.  This
     writing system is not yet well understood and is, therefore,
     not used in this dictionary.  (TKD 11)

The first sentence, combined with your quote above from TKD 14, suggests 
that pIqaD is a system in which different dialects are written differently, 
but not too differently.  A logographic system wouldn't be able to do this.  
The second sentence suggests that pIqaD is more complicated than the simple 
alphabetic system the KLI has on its website.  (If a Klingon in a basement 
could get you to understand all the verb suffixes and their orders, but 
can't get you to understand that this alphabetic character is {a}, this 
character is {b}, and so forth, then something is wrong with one of you.)

An outside observer learning English by listening only could never, ever 
work out how to write it, even given a description of its alphabet (and the 
fact that it IS an alphabet).  We have less information about the Klingon 
pIqaD than that, so I see no way to ascertain any further truths about the 
system.  Making arguments about the history of the language (e.g., the 
recent suggestion that recording warriors' names would be a primary reason 
for an alphabetic system) are just wild speculation; you can come up with 
all kinds of arbitrary justifications, but there is no evidence whatsoever.

One might try to work out an arbitrary system defined by what Okuda has done 
on the TV shows and movies, but this would be very difficult, at best: the 
only time we get Klingon writing actually translated for us is in an episode 
of Deep Space Nine where Quark accidentally reveals a banner of three words 
that Worf translates as "Welcome Klingons."  Now exactly which Klingons 
words are those?

The KLI's pIqaD is fun for titles and setting the mood, but it does not 
deserve the label "canon."

SuStel
Stardate 4545.9

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