tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Jun 27 16:47:28 1993

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Re: HoS voDleH jIH

I believe the right-to-left/left-to-right conversation thread started when
considering how to write Klingon out correctly.  Since Mark Okrand came
up with the language, but Michael Okuda came up with the displays, we 
could assume that Marc knows more about the language itself, so side with
him when their opiniond differ.  Most Klingon examples in English are 
written from the left to right (so we can follow it better, one supposes)
but we could assume that Klingons decided to write left-to-right as well
and the center-outward displays from Star Trek: The Motion Picture were
either just an interesting way to display the data (as opposed to merely
flashing it on the screen or scrolling it on from one side) or possibly
the center-outward scroll was intended to get the root words visible faster
and fade in the suffixes and prefixes of each words afterward so the general
meaning of a display could possibly be read faster (though not much faster, 
I guess, if only one word at a time appears...)
 
A language that bounces left-right-left while moving from the center outward
would be, in my opinion, a little too impractical, though it would certainly
give the muscles that roate the eyes in their sockets a workout.(hey! that's
it...  part of a Klingon's life-long training would be to learn to move one's
eyes quickly enough and sure enough to keep track of several opponents at once.
the practice for this rapid eye movement would be merely reading.  Well, it
could happen ;) )
 
- Eric

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