tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Oct 14 11:42:27 1994

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Re: Coining words



>From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
>Date: Thu, 13 Oct 94 17:25:56 EDT

>For me, coining my own word in Klingon would be like winning at
>Doom because I used codes to put myself in God mode. The whole
>point of the puzzle for me is to explore the existing tools of
>the language in order to state a thought closer to the core
>meaning than the original English.

Wellll, I wouldn't take quite so hard a line in all cases.  After all,
sometimes there's no word for what you want and compounding is a legitimate
form or word-building, sanctioned by Okrand.  So when I needed "fish" in
Jonah, a casting like "bIQ'a' Ha'DIbaH" was the only thing available, and
is hard to mistake (i.e. it doesn't seem a hindsight word: it's unlikely to
be misunderstood or make people scratch their heads in wonder).  But that's
not trying to make the Klingon word-for-word of the English.  That's a
specific concrete noun we just happened to be missing, and no recasting
would help.  But you're right that in general you have to look at what
Klingon *can* do before resorting to cheap tricks to cram the English into
your sentence.

>That's why I liked ~mark's "mother of invention" recasting so
>much. What he said meant "Necessity is the mother of invention,"
>better than "Necessity is the mother of invention."

Awww... choquvqu'moH.

>charghwI'



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