tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Mar 24 22:34:22 2001
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Re: KLBC: Perfect Sangha
ja' Qov:
>I can make one argument for vocabulary over grammar. If forced to choose
>either vocabulary or grammar for a foray into a foreign language
>environment, I'd choose vocabulary. If you know all the grammar of a
>language, but no vocabulary, you are unable to express your thoughts or
>needs. If you know NO grammar, but have a good vocabulary or vocabulary
>list, you can get along fairly well. "Toilet. Where." "Leg. Hurt.
>Pain. Assist. Please."
That's a very good argument. It's not entirely relevant, though, since
there is no "either/or" choice involved in learning Klingon. Both the
grammar and the vocabulary are published and can be looked up. However,
looking up the words is *much* easier, especially if you understand the
grammar. As I've pointed out before, translating words is easy enough that
a computer program can do it.
>You might have trouble expressing more complex thoughts, though.
If you know all of the grammar and very little vocabulary but you have a
good vocabulary list, you can express and understand complex ideas with
only a little trouble. Even if you have to look up most of the words,
you'll be able to do a credible job of communication.
If you decide that the grammar is trivially easy and put little effort into
mastering it, focusing instead on building vocabulary, you'll quickly find
yourself missing out on a great deal of the intended meaning of what people
write. I've corresponded with people who apparently knew or looked up each
word -- or put my messages through d'Armond's _pojwI'_ program -- and
shuffled the resulting text around until they got something which seemed to
make sense. Unfortunately, what they got was very seldom what I had
written.
>I don't believe you meant that you thought the grammar was unimportant.
>There was a time that KLI grammarians didn't think vocabulary was all that
>important. I think there's someone who has responded to your post who once
>told me that I needn't bother learning all the words. The grammar is the
>interesting part, after all.
I still think that learning vocabulary need not be a conscious task. It
will just "happen" as a person reads and uses the language -- as long as he
or she has to expend the effort to look up the words in a physical
dictionary, of course.
>But then as everyone improved at the language
>in face to face communications, vocabulary has become essential.
Real-time interaction is at an entirely different level. One must learn
either to "think" in the language or to translate extremely quickly, but
for that I must again insist that a complete grasp of the grammar is the
key.
-- ghunchu'wI' 'utlh