tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Nov 18 09:17:52 1996

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Re: RE: KLBC a phrase about Honor

ghItlh ghunchu'wI':

> ja' SuStel:
>>...I'm not sure if {muv} is transitive or not...
>
> The collection of words from {veS QonoS} includes the medical term
> {tuj muvwI'} "thermo-suture", literally "heat's joiner."  From this,
> it looks like {muv} can be used transitively, with a meaning similar
> to {tay'moH}.

What is {veS QonoS}?  Is it Okrandian canon?  Because if it is, I'm worried.
As someone else pointed out, {muv} in TKD appears to mean "join (become a 
member of) something" and not "connect things".  The words {muvmoH} 
"recruit (cause to join)" and {muvtay} "initiation (rite of joining)" 
seem to support this.  But a word like {muvwI'} seems to contradict this 
usage.  Or, more correctly, makes the verb {muv} more like the English 
verb "join", and this is what worries me.

I've made up several artificial languages for my own amusement, and what 
always happens is that when I am hard at work on one, I get deeply into 
the inner logic peculiar to that language, and the choices I make for 
grammar or word-formation follow naturally from that inner logic.  But 
after a few months or years, I've forgotten most of that inner logic.  If 
I wanted to make any additions or changes, I'd have to study the language 
for a while to get back into it, or I found that my changes fell back on 
the logic of the one language I use every day, English.

I'm afraid that's what happens with Okrand.  By all accounts, he's not as 
deeply into tlhIngan Hol as most of us on this list.  His original 
language is internally consistent, but I've noted a disturbing trend: 
these days, when he makes a grammatical addition or a new word, it tends 
to replicate English logic, and not Klingon.  {muvwI'} is an example of 
this.  Another is the .wav file that Qob (?) found on the Klingon CD, 
with the example of the headless relative clause; {Dajatlhta'bogh 
vIyajbe'} (I think that's how it went).  Another might be that Skybox 
card where {wa'logh} might have been used as an adverb for "first(ly)".

I'm not sure what my point is here, except that it seems that Okrand has 
lost his original inspiration for Klingon, and his choices are making it 
more and more like English as he goes along.

-- ter'eS

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