tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Nov 15 21:17:13 1996

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Re: pIqaDqoq (was: diphthongs)

Denny Shortliffe writes:
>I haven't seen a copy but I understand that the KLI puts
>out a 'journal' (HolQeD?) which contains (so it is said) some new words
>and rules that have been (discoverd? created? formulated?).  I find it
>unlikely that all these were the product of Marc's admittedly fertile
>mind.

Unlikely or not, that's exactly what's going on.  From time to time,
there are interviews with Okrand on various topics which help us to
get clarification on some grammatical issues.  On occasion, he'll
even provide new vocabulary (such as {qa'vIn} "coffee" and {'ampaS}
"academy").

>Does that mean that all articles in this mag (and, equally, any
>other pronouncements from KLI personnel &/or adherents are "theory and
>non-canonoical"?

Most of the articles in HolQeD are concerned with analysis of what
we know and speculation of what might underly what we see.  There are
rarely "pronouncements" as such; on at least one such occasion, the
person who made the pronouncement was immediately challenged and his
"obvious conclusions" were shown not to be universally accepted.

>I will accept Marc as the only official source of the *SPOKEN* language,
>including grammar and spelling.  But I'm not sure why that authority
>should extend to the written side nor, if we agree that it doesn't, why
>that should suddenly mean that there is no canon at all.

It's worse than "no canon at all", actually.  What we see is explicitly
"anti-canon".  Michael Okuda has always maintained that there is *no*
meaning to the written Klingon he puts on sets beyond purely aesthetic
considerations.

So the "pIqaD" we use is *officially* unofficial.  It is nothing more
than a character set for representing the official Romanization of the
Klingon sounds that is presented in The Klingon Dictionary.  It is a
typographic pretension, not something that is meant to act like what
the "real" Klingon writing system does.

-- ghunchu'wI'

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