tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Feb 07 21:40:29 1994

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Re: Learning by Typing (was Re: Someone point out the obvious, please.)

     I intend to use the work described below as a guide when I teach Klingon
students in Boise this July. Because of the copyright issue, I won't be
distributing my Annotated Klingon Dictionary (AKD), but I will use it to tell
my students how to annotate their TKDs, at least to fill in the "missing"
words and affixes. It will also serve as a reference work to help me quickly
find examples of grammar usage in canon to help clarify any points of
grammar, either for whatever program I have developed by then, or in response
to student questions. It's just one of the ways I intend to make the show
worth the money...

On Feb 7,  6:40pm, James Jones wrote:
...
> That makes me wonder...since the main obstacle to a tlhIngon Hol-English
> translator (or at least translator's assistant) one sees mentioned is the
> problematical status of distributing a word list, how about one that comes
> with a small program that guides the USER through entering a word list,
> along with part of speech, meaning, etc., and uses that to build whatever
> files it needs?  

     I started designing just such a system using Microsoft Access for
Windows, though I ran into the usual kind of problem with data base
management systems in general. Original design does not consider unexpected
data. First, the Klingon word was the key field in a record that included all
information about that word, but then there are all these words that are both
nouns and verbs, so I made the combination of Klingon word and part of speech
the key. I even made part of speech a set of radio buttons to speed up data
entry. 

     Then I ran into Klingon words that meant two different, unrelated verbs
in English. Then I realized that it would be impossible to sort according to
the Klingon alphabet, especially since the Access sort is case insensitive,
so {qab} and {Qab} appear to be the same word to Access. Also, "tlh" would
blend in among the other "t" words, etc. I could use the Schoen character
mapping that would make a typed "k" a shown "q" and a typed "q" a shown "Q",
etc., but then the sort order would be even MORE strange.

     That's when I decided to use my word processor instead. Word 6.0 for
Windows is glorious for this task. 

Warning: Most people will probably not want to read past this point (assuming
that many of you read THIS far...). I write this as a suggested type of
exercise to produce your own product and become familiar with the vocabulary.

     First, I enter words from TKD in the Klingon to English section using
Schoen's character map. I have Schoen's pIqaD font and I used Fontographer to
make my own Romanized Klingon font (that maps a typed "k" to a shown "q" and
a typed "q" to a shown "Q", a typed "g" to a shown "gh", a typed "f" to a
shown "ng", a typed "c" to a shown "ch", and a typed "x" to a shown "tlh"). I
also used Fontographer to make a version of Schoen's font that only uses his
uppercase characters, regardless of the case of the characters to which it is
applied. This way, if I follow my habit from here of mixing upper and lower
case while typing, I don't screw up the appearance of the text.

     I use Word's drag and drop (with the control key held) to copy the
Klingon word next to itself, then use the format paintbrush to quickly format
the first copy in Romanized Klingon and the second copy in pIqaD.

     I then use the mouse to select the whole line, click the right mouse
button for the quick menu and select "copy", then scroll down to the growing
"English to Klingon" section, find the right spot for the word, click the
insertion point there, click the right mouse button for the quick menu,
select paste and then drag and drop the English definition in front of the
Klingon words. If the word has multiple definitions or "be" definitions, I
copy this rearranged line and paste it into other appropriate spots in the
English to Klingon dictionary.

     I additionally put copies of words in alphabetically inappropriate, but
useful places, grouping all speed related words near the word "speed" or
enemy related words near the word "enemy", etc. In this way, my finished work
should act as both a dictionary and a thesaurus. I mark all of these
"unsorted" entries with square brackets so as to avoid confusing me when I
look things up.

     The beginning of the English to Klingon section has a Word bookmark, so
I click on the status line (or type Ctrl-G) to pull up the "go to" dialog
box, hit enter to go there and hit three left cursors followed by one right
cursor. This backs the screen up to show the last Klingon to English entry
and places the cursor ready to enter the next word.

     When I finish this task, I intend to compare the TKD English to Klingon
section with mine, catching all the examples of Klingon words there which are
omitted from the TKD Klingon to English side. They do exist. I will also
notate any words I've already entered in the English to Klingon side which
are missing from the TKD English to Klingon section. I will then be left with
a better, more useful word list than TKD. I will then add in the words in the
addendum by similar method, notating with each word that the source is the
addendum, though including them in my one sorted word list. The AutoText
feature of Word should be helpful for this notation of source.

     Next, I intend include a copy of the affix tables, adding in the new
affixes described in the addendum. Next, I intend to go through the rest of
TKD, start to finish, taking each word and affix in my word list and notating
the examples in which they are used. My interest is in creating something
similar to the OED for Klingon. It will say as much about usage as about
definition.

     Next, I intend to take the audio tapes and sweep through them, adding
them to the usage entries for each word and affix in AKD. Next, I add in the
movies. By the time I am finished, I expect there will be more canon from
which to glean appropriate entries.

     While I'm doing this as a personal exercise (Hey, millions of people do
crossword puzzles, right?) and the end product is for my own personal use, I
intend to talk to appropriate people to find out if the results could be
published. It is not so much that I dream of making lots of money for my
effort. It is more because that would both solve the copyright problem AND
make a little money, if it is decided that the effort was worthwhile, and
then we could all have a better dictionary than TKD. I've dealt with
publishers before, and recognize that there are more shortcomings in TKD
forced by the publisher than caused by Okrand.

     Anyway, given the search features of most word processors and the
structural flexibility of that document format, I suspect that they make
better tools for an online Klingon dictionary than most data base managers. I
understand that Excel 5 includes a customizable sort and some decent database
features, though I have not installed my copy of it yet. (Give me a break. I
just got it last week and I've been busy playing Doom.) Given that the
vocabulary does not soon threaten to exceed Excel's 16,383 record limit, it
might be a worthwhile tool as well. Still, you'd probably want something like
my Romanized Klingon font with the Schoen character mapping, so "tlh" doesn't
fall between "ti" and "to", assuming that you personally recognize and expect
the sort order offered in TKD. You do, don't you? {{:)>

charghwI'

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