tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Dec 13 05:42:32 1994
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Re: Abbridged Klingon Dictionary
- From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Abbridged Klingon Dictionary
- Date: Tue, 13 Dec 94 8:42:27 EST
- In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>; from "David Barron" at Dec 12, 94 7:37 pm
Okay, in the first place when I came up with the title AKD for
my home-made dictionary, the A stood for Annotated, which
explains the nature of the beast better than anything else.
Initially, I wanted a simple word list that included ALL the
words in one alphabetized list, instead of two. I was tired of
looking a lot of words up twice.
As I built this list, I decided to do more and more with it.
Using the font I bought from Lawrence and Fontographer to build
a romanized font with the same key mapping as Lawrence's font
(so that when I type "c", it prints "ch" and when I type "x" it
prints "tlh", etc.) and using all the spiffy character style
features of Word for Windows, I entered each word, then copied
it and changed the font so that the words in my AKD appear both
romanized and in pIqaD. That's just icing, however.
Primarily, by building the dictionary, I learned a lot about
the words in the vocabulary. As I entered all the
Klingon-English entries, I copied them into their appropriately
sorted places in the English-Klingon side of my document. I
then proofread the resulting English-Klingon side against that
in TKD. The differences were remarkable. That's where I started
annotating things. In [square brackets], I noted any
discrepancies. This way, I can find words that one could not
find with only TKD, and I can tell if in MY text there might be
any words that others might have difficulty finding with THEIR
TKD.
As I added the words from the Appendix, I noted the source {in
curly braces}. This way, if someone complains that they didn't
find my word, I can easily know, while looking it up in only
one list, to remind them to check the appendix.
The same is true as I add new words from the audio tapes, or
the new use of one word on one of the SkyBox cards. Then, if I
use such a word in a text, my hope is to remember to footnote
it for those who have only TKD. I may forget to do this, but it
is not the fault of my AKD, anyway. Even good tools may be used
badly.
My current project (after this list and Hamlet) is to build a
list of suffixes used in canon to study how they are used. I
also intend to site all canon useage for each word in TKD,
seeking to do for Klingon what the Oxford English Dictionary
does for English.
And no, you can't have mine, either. Again, it is copyrighted
material and I don't feel like distributing it to anyone I do
not personally know to have their own TKD. It costs money and
hassle to make copies, and besides, the PROCESS of making the
AKD is more valuable than the tool itself. Nothing else makes
the vocabulary more accessible.
Simply put, as you search for words, after you have typed in
every word in the language yourself, you tend to be more easily
able to remember which synonym exists in the language. It
causes you to pay attention to trends within the vocabulary,
increasing your understanding of certain aspects of the
language that you would have no other reason to grasp.
Besides, when your AKD wears out, you can always print up
another one, right? Both of my TKDs are getting all the worse
for wear.
charghwI'
--
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