tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Nov 05 09:56:44 1998
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Re: ambiguities in the Klingon and other questions
[email protected] writes:
>I am writing a linguistic paper on Klignon .
Very nice. I'm sure the KLI would appreciate a copy of it for the
archives when you complete it, whatever language it's written in.
[Watch the spelling of "Klingon", by the way.]
>Can anyone think of any ambiguities within the Klingon language,
>such as semantic or syntactic phonetic ones (or anything else)?
Ambiguities abound, both subtle and obvious.
First of all, {ghaH} can mean "he/him" or "she/her". That's a big
ambiguity from the point of view of someone whose native language has
gender-distinguishing pronouns. As a counterpoint, both {SoH} and
{tlhIH} exist in Klingon, contrasting with the English ambiguity of
whether "you" refers to one person or many.
The verb prefixes don't always completely specify the number of the
subject or object. {vIchagh} might mean "I dropped it" or "I dropped
them" -- or even "I dropped him/her." Unless an explicit object or a
clarifying pronoun is used, the sentence relies on context to resolve
the ambiguity.
Since the verb suffixes must appear in the prescribed order, there are
times when they can't exactly match the English expression of an idea.
This often happens when the Type 4 suffix {-moH} is used with a suffix
of lower type. Does {vISay'nISmoH} mean "I cause it to need to be
clean" or "I must cause it to be clean"? Both interpretations are
possible, and both are grammatically permitted.
Many identically-spelled words have completely different meanings when
used as different parts of speech. The most common confusion I can
think of is the word {neH}, which is a verb meaning "want" but also
can be unusual adverbial meaning "only" after a noun or "merely" after
a verb. {yIt neH} can mean "he merely walks" or "he wants to walk."
The only ambiguity that really bothers me is the word {wej}, meaning
either "three" or "not yet". {loDpu' Dalegh'a'} "Do you see the men?"
{wej vIlegh} "I see three (of them)" or "I don't see them yet."
I've never really noticed any phonetic ambiguities. When pronounced
carefully, about the only possibility for confusion in Klingon words
would be when doubled stops occur. Do {yu'egh} "wave" and {yu''egh}
"interrogate oneself" sound close enough that one might misunderstand?
Are {Duy'a'} "ambassador" and {Duy''a'} "major defect" hard to tell
apart? {Duj Dabej} can be either "he certainly acts like a ship" or
"you watch the ship," though usually inflection would distinguish the
two. But might it also sound like {Duj Dabbej} "He surely dwells in a
ship"?
>Another question which I asked myself is:
> What are the languages Mark Okrand was influenced by when creating
>the Klingon language and in what way can I see that.
[Be careful with spelling -- his first name is Marc with a "c".]
The two overriding outside influences in the creation of the Klingon
language were the sounds devised by James Doohan and spoken by Mark
Lenard in the beginning of _Star Trek: The Motion Picture_, and the
comment in the script for _Star Trek III: The Search for Spock_ saying
that Kruge speaks "...a few words in his gutteral tongue." That was
the basis for Klingon phonology.
The puns in the Klingon vocabulary reveal that the primary language
influencing Okrand's development of the Klingon was American English.
As for the grammar, however, existing natural languages almost seem to
have been "anti-influences", with some features present in Klingon
apparently because they are *not* found in many languages. :-)
>I know he has a PH.D. in the languages of the West Coast Indians but
>I would like to have some more concrete material....
You probably won't find anything concrete. He was careful not to make
it too close to any one language. I do understand, however, that the
{law'/puS} comparison formula parallels closely a construction in one
of the Native American languages he studied.
>Why could we say that Klingon is the language of an alien race? Which
>language universals does it not meet (except syntax)?
Since it's the creation of a human mind, I think by definition it's a
human language and any supposed "language universals" that it violates
weren't really universal to begin with.
>-Please write to [email protected]
> and not to the mailing list since I am not a recipient.
I've sent a copy to the list as well, since I believe that many of its
participants will find the information interesting.
--
Alan Anderson, professional programmer and amateur Klingonist
proud member of the Klingon Language Institute since 1995
qo'mey poSmoH Hol -- language opens worlds -- /