tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Sep 03 23:27:40 1997

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Re: TKW proverbs

On Stardate 97675.0 Klingon Ambassador wrote:
> Tue, 2 Sep 1997 13:08:40 -0700 (PDT) Qov jatlh:
> 
> >The replacement proverbs, on the other hand, were made up out of 
> >whole cloth.  This doesn't explain why the RPs aren't in KGT, but 
> >then Marc wrote KGT expressly for us (well it sure looks like it!) ad 
> >he knew we already knew how to spell the replacement proverbs from 
> >the tape. :) 
> 
> When you say "expressly for us" do you mean the members of the Klingon 
> Language Institute, the E-mail list subscribers, the language fans in 
> general or all of the above?  Just wondering who "us" is.

Allow me to make a comment here.  Consider Marc Okrand's position.  His boss 
or publisher or whoever it is that does his Klingon books tells him or 
encourages him to get a new Klingon language book out.  They must sell well, 
considering the popularity of the Klingons.

Okrand decides to use this opportunity to consolidate all of the new 
vocabulary he's generated since the publishing of The Klingon Dictionary.  He 
also uses it as a way to explain away a few more bogus uses of the Klingon 
language on Star Trek.  And finally, he has some fun with it.

So what does he add?  What does the language need?  Lucky for him, there's a 
group of particularly crazy people out there who not only study Klingon, but 
become fluent in it!  And they get together once a year and write up a wish 
list of things they think the language needs, or things they'd like to see.  
This is feedback from a group of people who actually use the language 
extensively.  They have experience in using it, far more than he himself has.  
In writing TKD, it probably never even occured to him that the vocabulary 
lacked any way to say "table."  But here he's got access to a group of people 
who have been pushing Klingon to the limit and beyond.

So what does he do?  He uses the wish lists, he uses his MSN forum, and he 
uses the feedback he gets from Klingon language enthusiasts, most of whom are 
likely to have already joined the Klingon Language Institute.  He takes all of 
this feedback as an accurate sampling of what's really lacking in the 
practical use of Klingon.  He puts the new stuff he comes up with into a book 
he calls Klingon for the Galactic Traveler.  It's a book all about the 
practical use of Klingon, not the formal, textbook-style use of Klingon.

Okrand did not say, "You guys want a new book?  Okay, I'll write a new book, 
just for you."  It was time for him to come out with a new book, and he used 
the best resources available to him.  He was not catering to us, though he 
knew that we, the Klingon speaking community, would get the most benefit from 
this book.

If YOU were able to write the next Klingon language book, and you knew all 
about what people had been saying the language needed, would you ignore all of 
that and write a book on Klingon ship design terminology?  No.

-- 
SuStel
Stardate 97676.2

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