tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun May 13 16:25:52 2001
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Re: *Paramount* chaw'
ja' QIS:
>...However, I *DID*
>notice that at least three of you who have been flaming me boasted of
>having had their own made-up words approved by Okrand....
bIlaDHa'law'. bIyajHa'bej. mu'maj'e' naDbe' Marc Okrand. rut bong chen
mu' ngeb; wa'logh lugh mu' 'e' maq Okrand. rut qech Delbogh mu' wItlhob.
qech qel ghaH. mujang; maHvaD mu' 'ang. (wIchHommajDaq, mu' ngu'meH
Okrand, matlh yu'.)
I'm not sure where you got that idea. Nobody whose notes I see in this
discussion has made up a word which was then approved by Okrand. What
*has* happened fits in several categories:
HoD Qanqor once made a one-liner joke using a term borrowed from another
language as if it were a Klingon verb. The joke was good enough that it
got repeated, and now that pseudo-verb is recognized by a few people. I
must assume Okrand has heard the story, but he has never said anything
about it. There are a handful of other events which might give specific
connotations to certain words, but such connotations are usually shared by
only two or three people and are not useful in general discussion.
You've seen the story of {'I'}. Nobody was expecting it to end up in the
lexicon. I think most of us *knew* it didn't mean "armpit" and never
would. We were surprised when Okrand contradicted us on that fact. :)
(The other word from qep'a' wejDIch was just silly -- when someone joked
that really needed a word for "noogie", I was rather dismayed when we were
officially assured that the verb was {nughI'}. It seemed much too offhand
an answer, but that's just my opinion.)
At qep'a' loSDIch, four years ago, there was a competition involving
Klingon tongue twisters, semi-collaborative stories, and other linguistic
challenges. As the "grand prize", the winning team was permitted to choose
one idea, expressed in English, and ask Okrand for the Klingon equivalent.
As the leader of Team Doq, I got to be the one actually to present the
request, though the choice of the word was definitely a group decision.
The process of narrowing down exactly which meaning of "go through" we
wanted was quite interesting, and amusing, to...um...go through. (I
suspect that was a one-time occurrence, since the idea of "qep'a' as
linguistic olympics" didn't catch on very well.)
The {matlh jupna'} inductees likewise receive the privilege of identifying
a concept and requesting an explanation of how to express it in Klingon.
It's not a magic wand which "authorizes" a proposed piece of vocabulary.
It's not even an immediate answer, as there is "research" that Okrand must
do before presenting the explanation.
>Yes, we are suspending disbelief to study this noble race.
Segh'e' vIHaDbe'. Hol'e' vIHaD jIH. vIHaDmeH, vItna' vIHarlaHbej:
tlhIngan Hol chenmoHta' wa' nuv. jaS bIHarchugh, chaq bImaw'.
Segh nov vIbuSbe'. jIQumlaH 'e' vIbuS.
>Why then should we believe that only Okrand has access?
If we believe otherwise, we ruin much of the premise. We lose the ability
to expect that someone can learn the language using only published
materials listed by the Library of Congress. We should believe that only
Okrand has access because any other way of dealing with it risks the
creation of mutually incomprehensible dialects, and that is certainly not
the goal of anyone who wants to use Klingon for communication instead of
secrecy.
>Surely we star voyagers
>may once in a while come across Klingons using unfamiliar words. (At
>least three of you have, by your own admition.)
ghobe' jay'! HovmeyDaq malengbe'chu' maH! Hol wIHaD neH. Hol wISIghmeH
wIlo'qu' neH. Hol wIchoHmoH net chaw'be'.
The only Klingons using unfamiliar words any of us have encountered are the
ones on television. :-P In our fantasy of the Klingons being a real race,
*we* don't have direct access to any native speakers. Okrand (with his
supposed informant) is the intermediary through which the language is
revealed.
***
Chris, your continuing argument sounds at lot like whining. "You guys got
to make up words; why can't anyone else?" But you've got your facts wrong.
First, we didn't make up words; with the exception of the anomalous case of
{'I'}, we just asked how to say something in Klingon which we didn't know
how to say using the known vocabulary, and we received answers within the
context of Okrand's having a Klingon in his basement to ask. Second, the
privilege of making such a request was earned through real dedication to
the language, not through protracted complaints about how unfair it is to
grant Marc Okrand a special status just because he's the one whose name
appears on the cover of The Klingon Dictionary.
Write a couple of articles for Qo'noS QonoS, or a story for jatmey. Serve
as Beginner's Grammarian on the mailing list for a while. Demonstrate your
skill in using Klingon as it exists without calling for extensions.
Participate in Klingon language outreach, trying to find others who share
the same skewed zeal for language which makes this "community" of speakers
such a dynamic one. Until you've established yourself by your deeds as a
strong supporter of the language, please don't go around telling people
it's okay to make up words if they feel like it.
-- ghunchu'wI' 'utlh