tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Mar 03 19:33:28 1997
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Re: KLBC: New Words - magic, magician
I wrote:
> I *still* don't know what it's supposed to mean. Let's pick a verb that
> we *do* agree exists -- how would I understand {Sovbe'Sov}? I wouldn't!
ja' Jim LeMasters:
>As Yoda would say, "That is why you fail!"
>You have, probably by accident written the first Zen-Klingon:
>literally Know-not know, or "Know without knowing" the state that all
>the old Samurai and monks worked their whole life to attain.
bIchu'bej. "koan" qonmeH tlhIngan Hol lo'lu'pu'.
You're a relative newcomer to the Klingon language -- Klingon has been
used to write koans before.
>Zen has
>rules, but the great masters seldom passed them along by rote. They
>made their students find the answers on their own.
pab je Hol. ghojwI'vaD Delchu' Hol po'wI'. pab luyaj ghojwI' net tul.
Language has rules too. Those skilled in language pass those rules
along to the students. One hopes that the students come to understand
them.
>In English, and many other languages, especially those that have grown
>through the absorbtion of other words and dialects (the Empire had to
>absorb the rival cultures of the various isolated clans and
>city-states), it is the exception that proves the rule.
I hope you realize that this is a silly argument, especially considering
what you say in the next paragraph.
>I find a rule
>that says "add wI' to a verb and make it a new noun associated with the
>verb." I find more examples in the known language and work the logic
>and see few examples of "accidentally ending in -wI'. Which is the more
>logical? That the rule MOST OFTEN applies, or MOST OFTEN is an accident
>handed us by the Master Okrand?
I'm not following you. Klingon is remarkably regular; of course the
rules apply in the vast majority of cases. But this says nothing of
whether the specific word {chamwI'} was made using this specific rule.
Even if it was, the putative verb {*cham} might no longer be used.
>Perhaps, like the apprentices to the Zen Masters of old, we are to
>discover new truths on our own!
Nope, not in this forum we aren't. Sorry.
>There is no rule that says it is
>FORBIDDEN to compound verbs into a single word, either.
That's another silly argument. There's also no rule that says we
can't stick noun suffixes on adverbial words. We have no evidence
for our being able to compound verbs meaningfully.
>In the words of the Zen Masters, "Where was the white horse when you
>didn't think about it?"
Huh?
(nuqDaq ghaH charghwI''e' wIpoQtaHvIS? :-/)
>If it has not been discovered in the research up to now, does that mean
>that it cannot be? Dinosaurs were thought to be cold-blooded until
>recently, and all suggestions otherwise were ridiculed!
Oho! There are certainly new things to be discovered; I won't argue with
that. But they must be *discovered*, not *invented*. One of the guiding
principles of this group is that _Marc Okrand_ controls the language; any
new vocabulary or grammatical rules must come from him in order for us to
consider it authentic. That principle has served quite well so far. The
alternatives would likely result in a splintering of the Klingon language
community into mutually incomprehensible dialects, which is something I'd
rather avoid.