tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Feb 24 21:52:08 1994
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Generic Ideas
>From: "...Paul" <[email protected]>
>Date: Fri, 25 Feb 1994 00:51:44 -0500
>How many "real" language have such complex prefix/suffix creations/rules?
>I think that, because we all MUST learn Klingon through translation, we
>may be running into troubles in translations because many times there
>are constructions that can't be defined in English, and often timers there
>are several interpretations.
[...]
>With as many suffixes as Klingon has, I think it may have too many. There
>are too many combinations to be made "on the fly" to always make your
>point. As -Ha' has shown us, there are often several interpretations, even
>for the EXACT same word! While many languages have various prefix/suffix
>constructions, most of the time you learn a specific definition for each
>combination. This hasn't been done with Klingon; in fact, I'd almost
>venture to say that it's IMPOSSIBLE to do with Klingon, due to the sheer
>number of suffixes.
I don't know that your premise is all that true. English, by and large, is
not an agglutinative language; we don't contruct words by compounding or
affixing on the fly very much. Klingon does this a great deal more.
However, the reason English has fossilized meanings for most compound or
affixed words is *because* it doesn't rely these methods heavily.
Languages which do, and they definitely exist, have fossilized specific
meanings for a few compounded words, but most of the time affixes are added
freely and on the fly, and the meaning is worked out on the fly as well.
Consider Esperanto, or German, or even Hebrew, which has certain
grammatical constructions analogous to the functions of Klingon suffixes.
They have words which have grown beyond the meanings of their components,
but most of the time the components are thrown together for that utterance,
and decomposed on hearing, with no problem. An example of a possibly
fossilized word in Klingon is "Qochbe'" for "agree", which some have argued
should be "QochHa'". Maybe it just got stuck that way for some reason.
>So what do we do about this?
>I dunno. Perhaps we should start a publicly-kept list of "accepted"
>definitions for each word combination we come across. After all, English
>dictionaries list both preview and view as separate words, as well as inform
>and information. A truly complete Klingon dictionary should probably do
>the same, or at least similar. This would obviously be of most use to those
>working on computerized parsers; they could provide much more detailed
>definitions...
Well, that only exacerbates a problem we already have: people out there
with just TKD's who are lost when folks with access to "private" stuff,
like your list, use things differently. Besides, *English* dictionaries
list "preview" and "view" separately, but an Esperanto dictionary would
give "bend" and "flexible" only one listing (if it listed the latter at
all), since they're regularly derived from each other. This isn't to say
that Klingon is Esperanto (do you sense I'm defensive on that?) but it
demonstrates that not all languages need to do things like English.
>...Paul
~mark