tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Jun 12 10:52:23 2002
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words and grammar (was RE: words for edit image)
ja' SIqar:
>I'm not a linguist
>I only know English grammar because it's the one I was bought up with.
>(and I'm not great at it)
If you want to speak Klingon, you will have to learn Klingon grammar. The
word lists in The Klingon Dictionary are only half of the book, and it's no
accident that they're the *last* half. As a beginner, you should probably
stop focusing on how to translate words, and start focusing on how words
and affixes go together in sentences to express ideas. Vocabulary can --
and will -- come later.
>And I thought that if one word meant something in one language and
>anther word meant something similar in another language that you could
>use the words to express the meaning.
You have to use them *correctly* in order to get your meaning across. Read
the grammar part of TKD, then read it again. You won't get "great at it"
immediately, but you'll at least understand that what makes Klingon a
distinct language is not just the words. The way the words are combined to
make phrases and sentences defines a language at least as much as the words
themselves.
Computers can look up words virtually instantaneously. They cannot yet
translate languages as well as people can, because nobody has yet figured
out how to teach a computer to understand the grammar of a natural
language. Klingon isn't quite a natural language, but it does a great
impression of one.
-- ghunchu'wI'