tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Jan 27 00:26:25 2002
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Re: qepHom, qep, qep'a'
- From: Qov <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: qepHom, qep, qep'a'
- Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2002 20:59:05 -0800
lab SuStel:
> Well, just my thoughts about it (it's not an article, nor a study:
> (a) /HISlaH/ is harder to say than /HIja'/. That's not just me; to
change from /S/ > to /l/ between syllables is a large change in
articulation point.
I mentioned one year at qep'a' and there was some agreement, that I find I
use HISlaH as a more emphatic yes. And it's almost certainly because I
have to slow down a bit to say it.
Many other usage patterns stem from the fact that all conversations contain
at least one person who doesn't know all the vocabulary. So when I say
ghotpu' bIj oSwI' ror and get blank looks I try again with nuvpu' Hup Duy
pI', and then in the next conversation I stick with the words that worked
the first time. So when the aim of a conversation is communication, the
most widely understood words are used, and become self-reinforcing as the
most widely understood words. The barely tipped balance becoming a
landslide is exactly the right description. If I talk to someone at
breakfast, when I see them again at lunch I'll try to use the same
vocabulary I forced them to look up at breakfast, and the people listening
to us will look up that vocabulary and then use it themselves, and so on.
Sometimes, however, the speaker is a newbie who has not been indoctrinated
into the KLI community yet, and thus uses fresh vocabulary. And THAT is how
we learn. As BG I had to look up more words submitted in hesitant
beginners' OVS sentences than I did in reading day to day fluent
conversation. A beginner is more likely to come up with lInDab tum than an
advanced speaker, who would probably say something like ghoqwI' ghom or
ghoqmeH DIvI'. As BG I also tried to assign sentences with some
ridiculously obscure vocabulary. The beginners have to look up every word
anyway, and they'll look up ghaj and QaQ on their own, so I make them look
up qor and lIq. Take Lawrence's obsession with HoSDo'. Anyone who's been
to a qep'a' in the last five years knows that word. I'll bet some of them
don't know yoq, or even ghot.
Maybe we should have a levelling game sometime where we progressively ban
words and affixes from the vocabulary and try and work around their lack to
describe flashcards. Beginners get to use the whole vocabulary, but other
speakers can't use words beginning in a randomly chosen letter. For the
more advanced, every time you screw up, you lose another letter, until
you've got one letter left and are grunting in clipped Klingon. That could
be funny, giving the beginners a chance to talk rings around the BGs for once.
<picture of a ship>
Duj Dalegh'a'?
'ejDo' 'ang 'otlhmeywIj
tepqengwI' tu'bej
So'be' SuyDuj
Qoj QI' QuQmey
Okay, I'm rambling now.