tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat May 12 04:40:06 2001
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Re: *Paramount* chaw'
From: "chris" <[email protected]>
> If the fellow in question invents a good word that I find useful, I
> may indeed use it. However, If the new word is unnecessary or
> unacceptable I would dump it in a heartbeat. For example, I cannot
> bring myself to use the impossibly corny (but Okrandian) chang'eng for
> pair, and rewrite my sentences as necessary to avoid it.
If you're going to ignore corny puns in the language, you're going to have
to dump about a third of the language. Almost all new vocabulary that isn't
somehow based upon pre-existing vocabulary (and even some that is) is a joke
of some kind: 'aqnaw, maHpIn, runpI', 'elpI', 'em, 'IrneH, QIm, 'awje',
mIQ, jav, and on and on and on. Some of the original vocabulary from TKD is
joke-based too: DaS, bIghHa', 'Iw, and some more. If you're going to dump
all of these, you're not going to have much left to say. As for what words
are "necessary," that depends on what you want to say, doesn't it?
> This leads me to a question I've never considered before and don't
> remember reading about. Is tlhIngan meant to be only a historical
> language?
The correct term for the language is /tlhIngan Hol/. /tlhIngan/ refers to a
member of the species.
> Or is it meant to be used?
It IS used: by Klingons. If we were to invent words that WE wanted, we
would no longer be studying the language of the Klingons. The idea is that
this fictional race of Klingons speaks this language, and we're trying to
learn it the way they use it. If Klingons were real, making up words would
be a different matter: we'd have a real, practical situation to manage when
two Klingon-speaking groups encountered each other with their own made-up
words. But there ARE no real Klingons, so if we change things the basis of
the language is lost.
> When Worf wants to discuss his
> more Terran experiences with a fellow Klingon, do they revert to English
> and admit that tlhIngan "has no word for that particular concept?"
He does it often enough to his Terran comrades. tova'Doq, nI'poH, parmaq.
There's no direct translation for any of these words (well, there's deja-vu,
but apparently Worf doesn't know that term), so he just explains them and
continues to use the Klingon term.
> Undoubtedly, ancient Klingon WAS unspoiled by weak and inferior Terran
> concepts, as Okrand has laid it out. But as Klingons and humans began
> to interact more and more, don't you think the Klingons delighted in
> insulting and disparaging human ideas and other such flaws?
Perhaps they did. You got any Klingons handy to tell us how this happened?
> At first
> they may have borrowed words, but surely the purists would have
> protested the corruption of their language and proposed new Klingon
> words instead. Indeed the French today are doing just this, rebelling
> against the influx of English words like pizza, blue jeans, and computer
> and3 inventing their own.
Who are doing this? The French people? Fine, it's their language. The
French government? That smacks of language control, and history has shown
that languages are very difficult to legislate. If the people want to speak
a certain way, they do so. Once in a while you get an individual who
manages to make a few changes (e.g. Webster), but if people don't like these
later on, they'll disappear again (e.g. split infinitives, no "fortunately"
at beginning of sentence unless it's really an adverb).
If you can demonstrate conclusively that Klingons themselves have chosen to
use the word "ziggersnert" to mean "automobile," we'll use it. Without any
Klingons to interview, you can't know this, and "ziggersnert" becomes a word
that CHRIS says means "automobile." And not to put too fine a point on it,
but who are you? (And compared to the size of the language--having been
around since 1985 and being used on every continent, who are any of us?)
To maintain the fiction that what we're speaking is a real language spoken
by Klingons, one MUST agree that only Marc Okrand has access to a Klingon
informant. Otherwise we'll all begin speaking a different language.
SuStel
Stardate 1362.0