tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jan 18 19:51:01 1999
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Re: mu'meywIj tetlh
Matt Cooperrider <[email protected]> writes:
>Hi, this is Matt again...
Welcome to the mailing list, Matt.
>As I said before, I am not to good at Klingon (yet). I
>would appreciate it if you would type In english what you type in
>Klingon as well.
This is a common request from people who are just finding out about the
Klingon language. As soon as you start learning the language, you will
probably see why it's not an easy request to honor.
>Just until I get the dictionary and learn a little
>bit. If this is a problem, Please let me know.
It often *is* a problem, and I'll tell you why. You see, what some of us
are doing here is speaking a language called tlhIngan Hol. It isn't a
simple matter to type it in English after typing it in Klingon; that would
involve translating it, not just retyping it. Many of us compose our
messages in Klingon, without considering an English translation at all.
There's no "trick" involved. It's not like pig-latin or arp-talk or
rhyme-slang. It's a distinct language, as different from English as are
Spanish or Italian or Mandarin Chinese or Cherokee. In many ways, it is
*more* different than them, having a few grammatical wrinkles that are at
best extremely rare in natural (Terran) languages. :) While it's somewhat
"alien" to a native speaker of English, it really isn't very difficult to
learn, as languages go. If it were a natural language, its extreme
regularity would be remarkable.
Don't let me scare you away. We all started from the same place you are
right now. Learning to understand Klingon is not only possible, it's
downright *fun*.
-- ghunchu'wI'