tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Jun 19 18:02:41 2001
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Official recognition (was: Re: To be or not to be Belanna)
- From: "Aryeh ben Naphtali" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Official recognition (was: Re: To be or not to be Belanna)
- Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2001 00:04:31 +0400
d'Armond Speers <[email protected]> wrote on вторник, июня 19, 2001, at
8:53
>What does it mean for Klingon to be an "officially recognized" language?
>Which body establishes such recognition? What are their guidelines? I'm
>not aware of such authority, but if it's there, enlighten us.
I had spent 18 years with the team of a linguistic institute (Oriental
languages) before I left it, and for me the sign of a language having been
officially recognized as such is its inclusion into the international series
"Languages of the world" (the Russian version: Moscow, "Nauka" ("science")
Press, published annually since 1981). The latest copy I have is 312 pages
thick and lists 2827 languages in the alphabetical order, both natural and
artificial ones. Far as I know, analogous publications exist in other
countries as well (at least, I have seen copies while working with the
Annenberg research institute in Philadelphia, PA, and then again in the
Israeli National Library). The body is, again as far as I know, a UN
committee. Far less regularly, but there appear volumes with brief
descriptions of the languages in question (at home, I keep only the ones
dealing with Indo-European and Semitic languages, but the published total
approaches thirty, to the best of my knowledge, up to ten languages per
book)
What concerns their guidelines, there are problems with this, but basically
related to matters of no concerns to us. They persist in refusing the status
of languages for more than one dialects of Arabic or Chinese, even though
those who speak the dialects have long lost mutual understanding with
bearers of other Arabic or Chinese "dialects" (this is the only real
difference between a language and a dialect: the question is whether the two
remain within the possibility of mutual understanding). That makes their
guidelines biased by politics, but I must admit I do not know the specifics.
However, I can and will inquire into this.
<snip>
>>From a legal standpoint, I don't think we could get away with publishing a
>dictionary. But we can certainly publish other works through the KLI, such
>as we did with {Hamlet}.
Okay then. I will try to find out what it might look like if I decided to
start publishing a weekly in St.Pete, Russia, or Helsinki, Finland. Hope I
will find someone among you who will help with editing - for a modest fee,
of course. However, this will not happen tomorrow. Besides, I have to
improve _my_ skills in the language first.
Best,
Igor F.Naftul'eff a.k.a. Aryeh ben Naphtali a.k.a. Lawrence shel Midbar
Yehuda
http://members.theglobe.com/hammurabi - this is to replace my intro which
has not appeared on the list so far (I must have messed with the address
writing the first post)