tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Aug 04 19:14:39 1998
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Re: KLBC - attempt at translation, v 1.1
- From: "David Trimboli" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: KLBC - attempt at translation, v 1.1
- Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 11:57:32 -0400
>This is the presumption:
>1. I say, "'eyqu' HIqvam. nuqDaq 'oH puchpa''e'?"
>2. Maltz writes down what I said on a datapad.
And he writes it in {pIqaD}. This is the crux of the matter, and it should
be stated explicitly.
>3. Kruge comes in. we hand him the datapad and ask him to read aloud
>what is written on it.
>4. Kruge says, reading, "'eyqu' HIqvam. nuqDaq 'oH puchpa''e'." He
>may pronounce it diffently than I did (better!) and stress different
>words in the sentence, but he reads back the same words.
What YOU wrote Kruge as saying is invariant. You described his
pronunciation, which was exactly the same as what you originally said. Let
me show you what the problem is.
Because I can't represent {pIqaD} in ASCII (if we even knew how to write
it), I'm going to use symbols to get the point across.
1. You say, "tlhIngan maH! vIttlhegh 'oH mu'tlhegh'e'."
2. Maltz writes down what you said on a datapad in {pIqaD}. It looks like
this: "!@ # $% ^ &*~"
3. Kruge comes in. We hand him the datapad and ask him to read aloud what
is written on it.
4. Kruge says, reading, "ghlIngan ma! vItghlegh 'o mu'ghlegh."
5. We conclude that Kruge is from Morska.
On the other hand, if you wrote "tlhIngan maH! vIttlhegh 'oH mu'tlhegh'e'"
in our Romanized characters, which we are forced to do, you are writing it
with exactly one pronunciation: {ta' Hol}. If Kruge picked up your
Romanized sentence, he's pronounce it as {tlhIngan maH! vIttlhegh 'oH
mu'tlhegh'e'} rather than {ghlIngan ma! vItghlegh 'o mu'ghlegh} (provided
he could produce the {tlh} sound).
Maybe the {pIqaD} symbol for {-'e'} is silent to Morskans. Maybe it's not
written by anybody, but pronounced in {ta' Hol} anyway. Maybe {pIqaD} is
written differently for the two dialects. We don't know at all, and to
treat the Roman letters as you would {pIqaD} is just plain wrong.
>It's possible that the writing system doesn't include all the parts of
>oral speech, or includes some marks that represent tone of voice or
>something like that. Maybe a Morkan speaker would read "nuqDaq oh
>puchpa," the /'e'/ being something used only in speech and thus not
>marked on the page.
Ah. I speculated as much above.
>The idea isn't that reading pIqaD sounds identical to speaking, just
>that pIqaD is a method of recording language . If it doesn't work
>that way it doen't seem like much of a writing system. If you don't
>believe the presumption, then you don't seem to believe that pIqaD is
>actually a writing system.
Then we've obviously had a miscommunication somewhere, because it sure
looked to me like you were saying that the Roman letters were to be treated
as written Klingon.
>What variations from being able to read back what was spoken are you
>considering?
Oh, there are plenty more of these. {pIqaD} may not be equally
understandable to all dialects. It may be changed from one to another. Or,
it could remain absolutely the same. We don't know.
The thing that started all of this was, I believe, trying to decide if
written Klingon is more formal than spoken Klingon. My assertion is that
the Klingon *WE* write, using ASCII, *IS* spoken Klingon, a transcription
system. We're just not actually speaking it (well, *I* do). Trying to say
that Romanized character text should be written according to speculative
formality of Klingon writing does not sit well at all with me. This is a
case where you "write" what you say, and say what you "write," with no
exceptions. The previous sentence has nothing at all to do with {pIqaD}.
SuStel
Stardate 98591.8