tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Dec 30 00:13:41 1994
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Re: Origins of Klingon
- From: [email protected] (Arden R. Smith)
- Subject: Re: Origins of Klingon
- Date: Thu, 29 Dec 1994 23:28:56 -0800
>Yes, Okrand got his doctorate based upon a study he made of a
>few very obscure Native American languages in the Southwest,
>but he has explicitly denied that those languages were anything
>remotely like a foundation for Klingon. The language is as
>original as Okrand could manage on a tight schedule.
>
>charghwI'
I'm decloaking and emerging from Lurker status for a few words on this
topic. A few months ago, while searching for influences on Klingon, I took
a look at Okrand's 1977 Ph.D. dissertation in the library here at U. C.
Berkeley (his alma mater). The dissertation is a grammar of Mutsun, an
extinct Native American language once spoken in the vicinity of Mission San
Juan Bautista in California. Mutsun clearly did not serve as a basis for
Klingon; in fact, Mutsun is very much *unlike* Klingon.
The phonemes of Mutsun, for instance, are (with modified notation due to
the limitations of ASCII):
Consonants:
/p/ /t/ /t./ /ty/ /k/ /?/
/ts/ /tsy/
/s/ /s.y/ /h/
/m/ /n/ /ny/
/l/ /ly/
/r/
/w/ /y/
Vowels:
/i:/ /i/ /u:/ /u/
/e:/ /e/ /o:/ /o/
/a:/ /a/
Here are a few other features of Mutsun that are different from Klingon
(page references are to the typescript of the dissertation):
(p. 111) "Morphemes in Mutsun are of two types, _roots_ and _suffixes_.
Every word begins with a root and may be followed by zero, one or several
suffixes. Only _particles_ can occur with no suffix, while _nouns_ and
_verbs_ must contain at least one suffix following the root."
(p. 133) "Words normally contain one and only one final suffix. In the
case of verbs, the final suffix may be one of mode (imperative), tense,
voice or aspect."
(p. 135) "Noun stems are nearly all disyllabic, though some are
monosyllabic and a very few are trisyllabic."
(p. 194) "With almost no exceptions, verb stems are disyllabic."
Back to lurking!
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* Arden R. Smith [email protected] *
* *
* "welaga nu, waltant got [quad Hiltibrant], wewurt skihit." *
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