tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Nov 23 14:45:00 1996

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Re: Engishization of Klingon (Was: RE: KLBC a phrase about Honor)


On Thu, 21 Nov 1996, Mark E. Shoulson wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> 
> >Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 13:34:44 -0800
> >From: Terry Donnelly <[email protected]>
> >
> >I wonder if there's any chance of Okrand ever turning "maintenance" of 
> >his language over to a third party?  (Probably, if it stops making 
> >money!)  But seriously, the KLI would be the logical entity.  I have a 
> >recurring fantasy of this happening.
> 
> It's a fantasy I occasionally have also... and I'm sort of hoping it
> doesn't come true.
> [pe'...] 
> A group of people arguing their favorite viewpoints is likely to
> be even more erratic than Okrand has been (I think "erratic" is too strong
> a word at any rate).  It's bad enough when we can't agree now that we say
> "we'll have to await clarification"; can you imagine if we had to decide on
> an answer and some of US make others wrong?
> 
You're probably right.  I think I was having a frustrating week in 
general and took it out on MO.

> >now.  (Am I the only one dismayed by Okrand's musing (threat?) that 
> >Klingon orthography might not be alphabetic?)
> 
> I'm not dismayed.  I rather hope it turns out not to be, and we get a nice
> weird one.  I hope he gives us an excuse to make the alphabetic one "OK",
> like the excuse I use, but I'd be quite happy with a non-alphabetic
> system.  Alphabets are too easy.  Given Klingon's mainly CVC structure, I,
> too, think a syllabary would go well.  It wouldn't need over 4000 glyphs;
> consider a hybrid system of some symbols for the CV combinations (including
> diphthongs or not among V) and another set of final bare consonants for use
> at the ends of syllables.  That's not all that unheard-of in a writing
> system.  (of course, various exceptions for rgh and whatnot).  Or alphabets
> or syllabaries for the content words and special symbols for the affixes
> (as someone suggested).  So we'd even have different spellings for the two
> meanings of -wI', etc.
>

Actually, anything besides the current Romanization is probably unlikely, 
simply because of the printing problems it would cause (both for book 
publishers/editors and for home PCs).

 > ~mark > 

-- ter'eS

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