tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Oct 13 19:23:00 1995
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Re: Straight from MO
On Fri, 13 Oct 1995 [email protected] wrote:
> > The issue here is not canon Trek, but canon tlhIngan Hol . . . which is not
> > the same thing.
>
> I respectfully disagree. Authorized source (P'mount), authorized content.
>
> TKD contains the notion of variations (as clipped versus standard),
> and the practice of changing "official" dialects on the ascension of a
> new emperor. This, IMHO, provides an "out" that excuses the execrable
> tlhIngan we hear at times (or don't hear - most of the time, *I* can't
> make out what they are saying, anyway, so I don't worry about it) as
> variations Maltz hasn't told us about yet. rejmorgh jIHbe'.
That just it, some of those strange Klingon phrases we hear in some of
the episodes can only be attributed to a different dialect, or maybe a
non-Klingon doesn't really know how to speak the language very well.
Sure these phrases are technically canon, but they're not the same
dialect we study and speak. When referring to "canon" tlhIngan Hol, we
are really referring to one specific dialect, the dialect presented by
Marc Okrand in TKD and not the crude dialects from the hinterlands of the
Empire.
The normal use of the word "canon" simply refers to finished, aired
versions of episodes and released versions of films and does not include
novels and other publications.
When we use the word "canon" in referring to the Klingon language we are
just referring to the things which Marc Okrand has had a hand in creating.
It's just a different definition of "canon" that we use to distinguish
Okrandian grammar from something which another writer wrote in a
screenplay. When we say some word or sentence is not "canon" Klingon,
we are only saying Okrand didn't write it, it is not intended to imply that
it is not Paramount-produced.
yoDtargh