tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Jul 13 17:49:43 1993
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Klinglish
- From: Randy Kloko <[email protected]>
- Subject: Klinglish
- Date: Tue, 13 Jul 93 10:01:28 EST
It's gratifying to see Klingon slang taken up elsewhere.
I've been meaning to post and explain my motives for
positing a form of "Klinglish". It's more utilitarian than
malicious.
I'd been trying to use Harry Lorayne's mnemonic techniques
to memorize vocabulary. Basically, you connect the target
word with a similar-sounding English word, then make up some
bizarre association with the meaning. I've had limited
success with it in other languages, and Klingon is very well
suited to it. I thing it started with Haqwi': "Dr.
Hackwit, the surgeon" is almost Dickensian. (I think
"jottle" should really be in English, but for communicating
over the net.) When I asked myself, "Why would Terrans take
Klingon words into English?", I remembered how the Norman
Conquest brought so much French into English (mouton>mutton)
and posited an analogous situation for Klingon
(yIH>yique/yiche/yick). Making it a form of argot is a nod
to the role of Russian in Anthony Burgess's "Clockwork
Orange".
There is a natural and (mnemonically speaking) useful middle
ground between English and its cognate languages. In
Klingon, we have the advantage of being able to construct
this middle country ourselves through analogy with other
languages and through free association. This is why I see
Klingon as a kind of super Rohrschach, an ink blot raised to
a higher power (so to speak), and a healthy boost to
the imagination.
Kloko-vo'.