tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Jan 05 05:40:08 2000

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Teaching Klingon

I generally try to keep out of the squabbles and disagreements, but let me
say a few things which I hope will help.

I believe that most ghojmoHwI'pu' have their hearts in the right place.
They share a common interest in tlhIngan Hol, and the desire to help others
obtain greater skill with it. I doubt any of us can find fault with this.

Conflict arises over perceived flaws in the instruction, either outright
misinterpretations, or potentially misleading statements. In a perfect
world, we could sit back and discuss these differences and hammer out some
greater uniformity so that the students of the language -- individuals with
neither the linguistic background nor the Klingon experience to really care
about the subtle and not-so-subtle matters being debated -- are all being
taught the same thing. My greatest concern in all of this, dating back to
disagreements with another organization, has been that there are too few
people learning Klingon that we can afford disinformation or anything that
detracts from mutual intelligibility.

Without a doubt, David Barron's original postal course was flawed, and
peHruS is quite correct to say so. We have been systematically reviewing
and rewriting the lessons, and making them available as PDF documents. I
believe we are catching and correcting many of the errors, both those which
may have been inadvertently included from the beginning, and others which
our ongoing insight into the language has created. I am not so naive as to
believe that we have fixed them all, and I'm sure that once the current
review and revision is complete we will start again from the beginning.

Similarly, I think there are some flaws in peHruS's online course. It's
well known to the language community that I endorse a very conservative
approach, which is in keeping with the views described above. That
conservatism is most likely the source of much of the disagreement I have
with his course, as well as others which (to my mind) are too loose with
their interpretations of canon.

This is an opinion, and I try very hard not to let just my opinion set
policy. However, ultimately, policy, of one type or another, is required if
we're to accomplish anything and move forward. In such instances I've
appealed to the notion that as individuals we are often blinded to things
that a group engaged in open and mutually respectful discussion is less
likely to miss. It's why the revision of the postal course receives input
from several past Grammarians, as well as why all the various translation
projects (from Hamlet to the Marvel comicbook) involve work by committee.
There are downsides to this approach, certainly. It's slower. It can be
frustrating and irritating. But I also believe that it is the best solution
we have, although admittedly not a perfect one.

I applaud peHruS's effort and his motivation, I wish we had more people as
industrious. But I also hope he will consider the intent behind criticism,
and listen to the substantive remarks of those with similar experience and
skill to offer a more uniform (i.e., "conservative") view. There's a
history here of online sniping and attitudes which everyone is aware of
(and peHruS has indeed acknowledged) which is all beside the point. Face
it, some of us just manage to push the "buttons" on others of us, and
sometimes even delight in doing so. But it's counter-productive. Let's try
to remain true to our shared goals in this matter, to facilitate learning
of Klingon.

taHjaj wo',

Lawrence


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:: Dr Lawrence M Schoen, Director   :: The KLI is a nonprofit ::
:: The Klingon Language Institute   :: tax exempt corporation ::
:: POB 634, Flourtown, PA 19031 USA :: DaH HuchlIj'e' ghonob  ::
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::  [email protected]  :: http://www.kli.org ::  215/836-4955  ::
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