tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Feb 08 05:17:53 1994
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NPR Interview
- From: Jeremy Cowan <[email protected]>
- Subject: NPR Interview
- Date: Tue, 8 Feb 1994 17:16:32 -0600 (CST)
For those who are interested, here is a transcript of my NPR
interview. It was my first live interview, and I think it went
pretty well. I said a lot of 'um's and 'er's, but I'll leave those
out of the transcription. I'll also leave out repeated sentences
and phrases. I did make a mistake in my Klingon. I'll leave that
in for you to see. I was overly prepared for the interview except
for one thing, I didn't have some good examples of the grammar
ready. I had to quickly come up with an example sentence and ...
well, you'll see. I opted to quickly say something that sounded
good rather than bore the listeners with a pause while I thought.
I'm sure no one listening knew the difference. The interviewer
(Richard) got some of the information incorrect also, but that's
not important. I missed the first part of the interview on the
tape, so we'll jump right in ...
Richard: Jeremy is the Public Relations Director for the Klingon
Language Institute and an instructor at the Klingon Language
Camp... What is a Klingon?... Klingons are the not so likable
characters in the Star Trek series, as a matter of fact in Star
Trek: The Next Generation... There is probably at least one
likable Klingon, Mr. Worf -- he's about the only one who anybody
ever really liked. I think. Would you say?
Jeremy: Yeah! Well, actually the Klingons are gaining quite a
number of fans so Klingons are being liked more and more.
They're friends with the Federation now.
R: I think it is amazing to me that through this television series
-- and there have been all kinds of characters, beings if you
will from other galaxies and all of that. And the Klingons
were... I mean the characters are warlike, gruff, not very
friendly, not at all romantic, none of that. And somehow have
come out to be the ones that people recognize most from that
television series. It's amazing.
J: They're maybe the most honest of all of the aliens that have
been presented. They tell their true feelings and they don't
let anybody get in their way, and somehow I think everybody sort
of identifies with that; everybody wishes they could be as
forceful as the Klingons.
R: So, your own man or your own woman.
J: Absolutely!
R: Tell me about the Klingon Bible. First of all, a couple of
years ago there was a Klingon Dictionary that was put out with
great fan fare. And I imagine some people bought that -- it
seemed to be a pretty popular novelty item.
J: Actually, yeah, a number of people bought it. I don't know the
exact numbers, but I know it was put into a second addition
which included an addendum -- and recently two audio cassettes
to supplement the dictionary have been released. I don't know
exactly how many people, but it's got to be enough that Simon
and Schuster is putting out new items.
R: As the director of the Klingon Language Institute: Why? I mean,
it's not like your going to go to some part of Europe and
converse with somebody in Klingon -- or Cleveland.
J: No. It's more a hobby. Like any other Hobby you would have.
You know -- some people memorize sports scores, some people go
bowling, some people collect stamps -- it's a hobby.
R: And some people speak Klingon.
J: Some people speak Klingon. Exactly! Most of the people who
really get into speaking Klingon are linguists. In fact, in the
Klingon Language Institute, there's a number of people who are
linguists and not even big Star Trek fans. It's an interest,
rather, in learning another language, whether it's useful or
not... that can be more friendly than, perhaps, some foreign
languages.
R: Is this a work in progress, the translation of the Bible into
Klingon? Why would anybody try to do that?
J: Well, there is some theory that the intent is that we'll ...
convert the Klingons to Christianity. <Richard laughs> I don't
think that's very likely... or very serious. I think most of
the people that are working on it just have seen it as a project
that they can use to hone their Klingon skills. There are
actually a few different translation projects going on -- the
other major one being: translating a number of shakespeare's
works with an attempt to complete Shakespeare's works in
Klingon. Those are the two big projects. I think the bible
project is getting a lot of attention, though.
R: As I read (past tense) some things on this, it occurs to me that
-- and I don't have that particular article in front of me --
but I think I remember it being described as a language that was
not close to any of the ... you know there's some languages
that you can associate with european languages, some asian
derivative kinds of languages, but this was one that doesn't
have any of that. What is its derivation?
J: If it was going to be compared to any language... it actually
has some similarities to English, seeing as how it was created
by an English speaker. But also, when he was creating it he
attempted to purposely make it not like any languages on Earth.
Now, of course, being an Earthling himself, and a speaker of
English there's things that are going to get in there. And it's
obviously not foreign enough that you might actually expect it
was an alien language, but it's got some things that are unique
and some things that are different from what we would expect.
R: Such as?
J: Well, the main thing -- and when I'm teaching Klingon to people,
the first thing I always tell them is, "Klingon sentences are
backwards." The words we would expect at the beginning of the
sentence come at the end of the sentence in Klingon. And the
words that we would expect at the end come at the beginning in
Klingon. And so, it's not unique, there are other languages
that do that, but to English speakers it's a very odd thing to
try to get used to.
R: Do you mean the words themselves or the sentence. As in what is
it Chinese... <He goes on, but I spoke over him.>
J: The words. The sentences would come in the same order. But the
sentence would be backwards. To get into a little grammar: in
English we go subject-verb-object, in Klingon they do their
sentences in the order of object-verb-subject.
R: Could you give me an example of that? Please give me the
English first.
J: OK. Let me give you this one. To say, "I am Klingon," you
would say, in Klingon, "tlhIngan jIH." OK? We lost a word
somewhere in the translation...
R: Which is Klingon I am, right?
J: ...but, "Klingon I am," basically. Which sounds backwards to
English speakers. Or if you wanted to say, "Maltz is a
Klingon," then it would be, "tlhIngan 'oH matlh'e'."
R: Which sounds kind of German to me.
J: Yeah, well, it's been compared to a lot of things. Michael Dorn
the actor who plays Worf always says that it reminds him very
much of Yiddish 'cause it's got this good... when I said,
"tlhIngan jIH,"... that sound there at the end -- everybody
thinks it sounds like yiddish.
R: Are there friendly things that are said in Klingon? I mean they
don't have a lot of friendly stuff, yeah?
J: No, Klingons aren't a necessarily friendly bunch for instance
greetings...
R: Or no romantic things.
J: Oh there's plenty of Romantic things.
R: What is a greeting?
J: OK. Klingons don't really have greetings. See, they're very
straight forward, very to the point. English speakers have a
real problem with that because English speakers want to walk up,
say, "Hello. How are you?" Klingons don't do that. The
closest thing you can get to a Klingon greeting is... Klingons
will sometimes say, "nuqneH," which means, "What do you want?"
R: Well, how do you say goodbye?
J: There's no word for goodbye either, just like greetings, but
often times when parting they will say, "Qapla'," which means,
"success."
R: Qapla', because we're out of time.
J: Qapla'
R: It's been a pleasure. Very interesting talking about the
Klingon language which is now... there's some translations being
worked on one of which includes translating the bible into
Klingon. Jeremy Cowan, Public Relations Director for the
Klingon Language Institute and an instructor at the Klingon
Language Camp. What was that thing, again, you said?
J: Qapla'
R: Qapla'. OK. Thanks a lot. WBEZ Chicago...
janSIy }}:+D [email protected]