tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Aug 09 03:08:46 1993

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Jottlez-vous Francais?



  Excuse me for re-using one of Randy Kloko's Subject: lines, but among with
(much matter that would be of more interest to psychiatrists than to Trekkies)
he did raise the scenario of Klingon words getting into English. Under what
circumstances would this likely happen? There are these ways that words get
from one language into another:-
  (1) Along with the object or idea that the words represent. New real
examples are a host of scientific words; older examples are "tea" < Chinese,
"canoe" < some Amerindian language, "chocolate" < Nahuatl (= Aztec); an
ancient example is "hemp" (rope and rough cloth are made from its stem fibres)
which appears as 'kanabis' or similar in Indo-European and Finno-Ugrian etc
alike as if the word spread with the plant in prehistoric times. Examples from
Klingon are `targ` and `Fek'lhr` and some names of Klingon foods. To be
distinguished as subclasses here are: (a) use only in descriptions of the
nation that the word came from; (b) use properly naturalized in English.
  (2) A tendency for "the X-ish word for a Y to become a word for an X-ish Y".
E.g. "nanny" was originally a child's word for "nurse", but now is an ordinary
word for "children's nurse" to distinguish from "hospital nurse". Likewise
Kloko's example, `jatlh` = "say", being used as English to mean "speech in the
Klingon style", at first in italics and used only of speeches by Klingons, and
then in ordinary type and more generally for that style of speaking.
  (3) Mere love of the exotic and to make speech sound more colourful. Kloko
(message of Mon 12 Jul 93 18:25:27 EDT) gave this dialogue:-
    Bockwit (baHwi'=gunner): Shall I bock (baH) 'em doc (DaH)?
    Ratwit (ra'wi'=commander): No, wedge (wej) you kripwit! (Qipwi')
    R: Doc! Bock it doc! You'll hoke (HoH) 'em madge! (maj)
    B: But you said wedge. Can't you bottle (batlh) your jottle? (jatlh)
    R: Frackin' madge. They've gone and jocked (jaH) right outta here. Ain't
one do (Duj) left in the whole dev (naDev). You should be wiping tacks (petaQ)
up off the poochpot (puchpa') floor!
  but there are many equally spectacular real examples. E.g. two ordinary
French words: 'ce', 'cette' = "this, that" < Late Latin 'ecce-iste' = "look!,
that near you"; 'manger' = "eat" < Late Latin 'manducare' = "to (act like) Mr.
Glutton" after the common drama character Manducus. Both were used habitually
until they lost their force. Also the way in French such a common object as a
stone lost all its Latin names and took a Greek name 'petros' > 'un pierre'.
  In a scenario that Kloko seems to hint at but does not occur in the actual
Star trek scenario (except perhaps in Earth colonies tolerated in the Klingon
space area), namely actual rule by Klingons, Klingonisms would get into the
local Earth-speech thick and fast in many fields of vocabulary. A real-world
example is that modern Albanian is only 6% native aboriginal Illyrian, after
it took in so many words from Latin-speaking and Slavonic-speaking etc
invaders down the centuries; holdout areas of Greek speech in odd corners of
Anatolia are full of Turkish words and even have Turkish-style vowel-harmony.



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