tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jan 27 06:49:00 1997
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Re: KLBC: Questions & Announcement
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>Date: Fri, 24 Jan 1997 15:13:39 -0800
>From: "David Trimboli" <[email protected]>
>
>January 24, 1997 8:46 AM EST, jatlh Daw'ut:
>
>> tlhIngan SoH'a' pagh tera'ngan SoH'a'
>> Are you a Klingon or are you a Terran?
>
>This is grammatically all right. I have problems, though, with joining two
>questions together. Here's a quick analysis of my logic:
>
>Either (yes or no) or (yes or no).
>
>How does one answer such a question (the logic, not the example)? It's
>"nesting" answers. I'd much prefer to make it two questions:
>
>tlhIngan SoH'a'? tera'ngan SoH'a'? mutlIj yIngu'!
For me, just the two questions suffice (adding "identify your species"
seems redundant). It sounds nice and straightforward and natural to me,
just asking "tlhIngan SoH'a'? Human SoH'a'?" (remember, "Human" is the
species)... sort of mirroring the way such questions are asked in Japanese
(not that Klingon is Japanese, but it shows that it is not unreasonable to
do it this way. And other languages show it isn't unreasonable to do it
other ways).
>Of course, this is not official, it's just my opinion.
Ditto.
>> DaqwIj DatIvchugh vaj juppu'lI' Daja'
>> If you enjoy my site then tell your friends.
>
>If it's a command, you need the imperative prefix:
>
>vaj juppu'lI' yIja'.
And if you are taking "your friends" as the object of "ja'", it needs to be
"tIja'". But shouldn't it be "juppu'lI'vaD"?
>> I also have been wondering about John M. Ford's Klingonaase.
>> I can accept that Ford's Klingonaase is an alternate dialect from a previous
>> Chancellor/Emperor or some remote colony of the Empire or something like
>> that, so my questions are more reality-based. I understand that he is the
>> author of an influential novel involving the pre-Okrand Klingon language,
>but
>> who is he and what makes him qualified to rival Dr. Marc Okrand as the
>> creator of the Klingon language?
Um, read this through again. His language *predates* Okrand's. It came
first. As in before it. You can't accuse him of daring to challenge
someone whose case wasn't even in existence when he did his thing. Sort of
like saying "How dare medieval English literature talk about elves when
they were defined perfectly by J.R.R. Tolkien."
Now, why do people persist in studying or being interested in Ford's
Klingonaase when there is tlhIngan Hol? A variety of reasons, I imagine.
For one thing, it has been around longer, and has had more time to build up
a following (one could say "How come people bother studying the jargon of
this upstart Okrand?" in fact. But of course, the languages were designed
with very different aims in mind and by people of different backgrounds).
Also, some people find it interesting in its own right. For all that it is
just a small handful of vocabulary words, some of its concepts are
definitely interesting and worth looking at and thinking about. More
importantly, and more broadly, nothing is so important that nothing else is
important. That I study Klingon (and am Grammarian on this list, and all
those other titles) doesn't mean I don't like studying Quenya, Sindarin,
Lojban, Esperanto, Welsh, Sanskrit, Yf Rgalin (I have to study that; I
invented it), Volap"uk, Ro, Langue Bleue, and a dozen-odd other languages.
Why be restrictive? Even were it the case (and it isn't) that it is
*impossible* for both Klingonaase and tlhIngan Hol to have *ever* been
spoken by the same imaginary people even in the same imaginary universe,
why can't folks study both anyway? Why do we do this at all, anyway?
Because it's fun.
>> Why should/would anyone continue to use
>> this unofficial language now that Okrand has provided an official structured
>> language for the Klingons (not to mention the Vulcans)?
Because it's fun. :) It's just sort of too bad that Klingonaase isn't
really usable. Too little.
>> Were Ford, and the creator of the "Kardassi" language, sanctioned by
>> Paramount? If not, why should we care about their unofficial languages? As
>> an aspiring science-fiction writer myself, if I "create" the Pakled or
>> Yridian language in a novel will everyone start studying and using it?
Probably not, but that wouldn't make it less fun for you invent it. Didn't
stop Timothy Miller from inventing his Cardassian and his Ferengi. And if
some people decided to study it because it was fun for them, who are you
(or I) to say that they may not have fun doing so?
>However, I certainly do NOT advocate saying that any words having to do with
>Klingons are automatically {tlhIngan Hol}. That'd be like a Klingon hearing a
>French word and thinking that the word is English, since it was spoken by a
>Terran.
A point worth remembering.
~mark
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