Re: maDISnIS'a'?

[Andrew Strader <strader@decode.is>]

>> (there's some guy
>>who was hired by a corporation to create a language to lend verisimilitude
>to
>>a product, and we're learning THAT -- quite dull).

>I actually find this aspect of tlhIngan Hol quite interesting. }}:-)  It has
>its appeal simply as a really interesting language, and all facets of it,
>both fictional, and real life, add (equally) to it.

Hmm. Point taken. The external aspect has appeal too, doesn't it? As a 
conlang, Klingon has many good points. But of course it wouldn't survive nor 
even exist without its alien mythos. To clarify my point, I maintain it is 
inappropriate to call upon both the internal and external histories in the 
same analysis of the language. If analyzing it at one point as a natlang, you 
would submit to the general subtlety and softness of all natural languages, 
but if you then suddenly switch to analyzing it as a conlang, there is a much 
clearer dividing line between what is right and wrong. It boils down to 
Okrandian and non-Okrandian, and that seems far less interesting -- the 
language becomes a simple game of follow-the-leader. I believe it's more 
important for us to think about it ourselves. Hell, we might actually learn 
something. Someone here was trying to equate "Okrandian" with "natural" 
Klingon. That equation is usually accurate, but it misses the point. It's 
like equating "Buddhism" with "whatever the Dalai Lama says".

-- 
Andrew Strader