tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Aug 03 15:15:49 1999

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Errors, mistakes and the evolution of Klingon



nuQum pI'lo:

: jIqontaHvIs mInmeywIj. (when I composed, my eyes were all over the
: place---<ghIch> was right beneath <ghIgh> on my Palm Pilot. 

It happens.  Even Okrand has made this type of error (lapsus oculi?) when
looking words up in TKD on at least two occasions I can think of off hand.
And
in the strange world of Klingonology, Okrand's mistakes usually become canon. 
Sometimes he tries to accomodate them into the grammar or culture at some
later
point, sometimes he just ignores them.

Although no one likes to make mistakes, I think he takes full advantage of
them
as a source of unpredictable variation all too often missing in conlangs. 
Klingon was supposed to be a "natural feeling", if artificial, language.  It
was never intended to be perfectly logical or consistant.  (He was inventing
Klingon, not Vulcan after all!)  Errors, both his and actors (particularly in
ST3 and ST5), are the origin of some of the synonyms and phonetic variations
eventually published in both editions of TKD.

BTW "Paramount {Hol} - the so-called "Klingon" heard on the television
episodes
- is another source of random, uncontrolled (some would say "out of control")
variation.  Unfortunately, the most he can usually do with this stuff is to
just call it {no' Hol} "ancestors' language", i.e. phrases of archaic
languages/dialects still heard in  traditional rites and ceremonies.


-- 
Voragh                       
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons



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