tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Dec 18 12:52:07 1996

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Re: parmaq (par'mach) - oh, it *IS* canon, eh?

At 07:12 AM 12/18/96 -0800, Joel Peter Anderson wrote:
> ...
>Someday the Klingon language community will grow up and drop this childish
>hostility toward Paramount's scriptwriters.  I doubt there is anyone here
>capable of what they do.  I certainly couldn't, and *I* have a degree in
>theater (including courses in scriptwriting). 

Yes, you've got a point, but the sheer ignorance of the writers to almost
entirely ignore the language that Paramount (their employer) has copyrighted
is shocking. If they can do what they do so well, how come they can't spend
the extra little time to talk to Okrand? Or, even better, (as Okrand
probably is quite busy), submit it to the KLI. It takes two faxes: one to
get there and one to come back. I'm sure a lot of the fans would appreciate
that extra little bit of work that the scriptwriters have decided to
undertake (which only takes a day or two, considering time differences and
the fact that the scriptwriters nor KLI is a 24-hour-a-day job).

>>   It was NOT, however, when you had originally written your statement.
>
>Well, yes it was - Okrand delineated it in terms of tlhIngan Hol, making
>it fair game, and "canonical" to the tlhIngan Hol comunity.

"Delineated it", yes. But we're talking Earth, real-time here. WHEN YOU HAD
WRITTEN THAT STATEMENT, OKRAND HADN'T OFFICIALLY SANCTIONED THE USE OF
<parmaq>. There.

>Obviously I get some sick kick out of playing "bait the Klingon", pointing
>out that the canon Klingon vocabulary is larger than that defined in TKD
>and other Okrand generated sources.  Please understand that I recognize
>the interests of the KLI and that MOST tlhIngan ghojwI'pu' focus on the
>Okrand corpus.  Read Holtej's FAQ, section 2.10 on "I just heard Worf
>say... what does it mean" (I wrote it). 

The canon Klingon vocabulary isn't larger than TKD/Okrand-sources. The
writers, as stated before, aren't canon. As you said earlier, the language
defines grammar -- and the grammar has already been understood (including
orthography). So a writer who writes <*Par'Mach*> in the episode title isn't
granted the right of being canon. It doesn't correspond to orthographic
rules. There are no capital "P"'s or "M"'s in our romanized version of the
language. He's messing things up. Do you think that Okrand made it <parmaq>
for no reason? Of course he spelled it that way for a reason: it conforms to
the orthographic rules.

-mayq

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