tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Mar 09 10:00:03 1998

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Re: Re:English - thlIngan - german

From: Qov <[email protected]>
>Hey that's a great idea.  Treat the big list as the place to graduate to
>after a person has asked the newbie questions in the safety of a smaller,
>beginners' German-speaking list.  I know that right now there are a number
>of satellite conversations in English, beginners who don't feel confident
>enough to post to the list, so who have e-mail conversations with
>intermediate speakers, who in turn post to the list to ask questions they
>can't answer.  Eventually the big questions should come out to the whole
>list for debate, but not everyone is willing to undergo the learning
>experience of parading her naked mistakes in front of the world.

The big problem I see with maintaining multiple lists is that you create
schisms.  Suppose you have a beginners list and an advanced list.  People
posting to one list would not be very well heard on the other list, even if
they had something important to all.  And it's not all that easy to decide
what's important to everyone.  Too much cross-posting would eliminate the
point of having multiple lists in the first place.

Similarly, having an English-speakers list and a German-speakers list could
cause some problems.  Suppose one day I had a revelation, posted it to the
list, and a great discussion begins, changing the viewpoints of many
speakers concerning a certain topic.  Unless someone was willing to
translate *every* post in that thread, only a summary or a couple off posts
of the thread would be released to the German list.  I doubt the discovery
would still have its original force.  I grant that this is an extreme case,
but I'm sure other, similar problems might arise.

Having official BGs for each translation of The Klingon Dictionary would be
problematical, too.  If we had an unending supply of Klingon speakers who
were also skilled in either German or Portuguese I'd say elect BGs for each
language.  We barely have that many English-speaking BGs, let alone German
or Portuguese.  And even if a German speaker or Portuguese speaker came
forward and volunteered for the job, I guarantee that they'll eventually
tire of it and want to resign the position to someone else.  There won't be
many candidates.

I believe that having German or Portuguese language BGs could still be
beneficial, though.  If we had 'em, we might get more German-speakers or
Portuguese-speakers to learn enough of the language that they might, one
day, be able to take over for the overworked BG.

My position on this topic is this: permit discussion in German, Portuguese,
and whatever other languages TKD may be translated into.  Maintain an
official errata for the alternate lanuage books on the KLI website (hell,
you might add one for the English version, too).  If sufficient people begin
using one of these languages, appoint a BG for that language.  Mark all
KLBCs with an acronym in the appropriate language (simply writing it in that
language is not enough, since subjects are often in Klingon).  Encourage the
use of these other languages, but don't make official structure in the list
concerning them until the demand for it is great.

If Lothar's idea of maintaining a German list generates a lot of response,
perhaps he could then actually incorporate the members of his list into the
KLI mailing list.  This would require setting up a system as detailed above.

One thing should be obvious: no matter what language the poster speaks, the
object is to learn or use Klingon.  We ALL have some measure of skill in
that, so I see communication possible, even if we share no "real" language
in common.  If someone who speaks German or Portuguese, but not English,
joins the list with their translation of TKD, I'll be thrilled.  At that
point, Klingon will cease to simply be a hobby for me, it will become
absolutely necessary in order to communicate.

SuStel
Stardate 98184.2

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