tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Sep 27 17:39:45 1994

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Re: A thesis on tlhIngan!?



Hu'tegh! nuq ja' [email protected] jay'?

=Well here's one for ya...  There's a story (rumor, actually) going
=around that someone has used their work in translating the Bible to
=earn a PhD.  []
=Oh, and please feel free to share your views on the possible
=role of tlhIngan Hol in any thesis..  Nick, I know you, in
=particular, have had a bit of experience in both the translation
=and thesis areas.

It is entirely possible to do at least a Master's thesis on what has happened
to Klingon since the mailing list started using it. Since I'm going to bring
up Klingon in academic fora, I'm sure to get very defensive about it, but it
is my belief that what is happening to Klingon is linguistically very 
interesting. But three years of research? (At least, that's how long it takes
here.) I didn't think so --- which is why I didn't do Klingon. Then again,
if you do it properly, it may not be such a bad thing after all.

I know a lot of people in my uni are under the impression that I'm doing my
thesis on Klingon, and it's not beyond the bounds of reason that I'm the origin
of this rumour; but my first supposition would be that it has an American
origin. Could you provide more information?

As for Bible translation as a PhD... not implausible; the trick would be to
get examiners who know enough Klingon to sensibly evaluate it, and enough of
a tradition of Klingon translation to have some objective criteria to base
evaluation on. Maybe in ten years; definitely not now. That much you can
rule out, even if the proposal hadn't already been laughed out of campus.

The thing about artificial languages in linguistics is that they don't evolve
like natural languages do --- which is why burgh is unlikely to catch on as
'inside', and there's a whole article just in *that* (artifical languages
 have much more in common with written languages like Mediaeval Latin or 
Sanskrit); they're used in really strange sociolinguistic circumstances; and 
they don't give you much data. Many linguists would not consider them valid 
subjects of linguistic inquiry, which is why I'll have an uphill battle 
getting anything published (and why I'll have to go stats-crazy). While I 
find them interesting, I certainly wouldn't want to make the latest syntactic 
theory about language universals sink or swim on Klingon data. (Good thing 
there are languages out there much wierder than Klingon.)

-- 
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Nick Nicholas. Linguistics, University of Melbourne.   [email protected]  
        [email protected]      [email protected]
        AND MOVING REAL SOON NOW TO: [email protected]



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