tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Sep 21 08:11:27 2000
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Re: KLBC moHaq Dup
- From: Marc Ruehlaender <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: KLBC moHaq Dup
- Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 10:11:11 CDT
I wrote about the "prefix trick":
> > What you see as "an interesting twist", I, as a non-native speaker of
> > English, see as a disappointing copy of English grammar, which most
> > likely came about through careless translation of what rightfully are
> > IOs in English into Objects in Klingon, leaving the rightful DO of the
> > English sentence tacked on at the front of the Klingon sentence. Very
> > disappointing, especially from a person (Marc Okrand) with a degree in
> > linguistics.
>
Joseph answers:
> I don't find one form in any language necessarily better than any
> other form in any other language: they are, to me, merely different,
> though some may lend themselves to finer, or grosser, translations
> and meanings. While it is true that I'd not have chosen to use this
> form for IO in Klingon, it is also true that I didn't create Klingon. My
> only disappointments so far are because of the lack of clarifications
> by Okrand about grammar & usage.
>
you miss my point: I don't believe Marc Okrand made a conscious
choice to use the English construction for his language. It looks
just like an accidental copy. If he had chosen from the beginning
to copy this particular feature of English grammar, I'd have expected
it to be mentioned, at least in the Addendum in the section about
"indirect objects" (6.8., TKD, p. 180).
> BTW, English is not the sole natural language which has this form
> for IO; nor is Klingon the only constructed language which uses
> anglicisms (e.g. L=E1adan has a word "ib", which translates as
> "against", but which can either "lying surface to surface" and "in
> opposition to", the deference being determined by context).
>
so what? did the inventor(s) of this language intend this word
to have both meanings? or is it (also) just a side effect of their
being native speakers of English?
Marc Ruehlaender
aka HomDoq
[email protected]