tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Jul 13 22:16:17 2003
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Re: Is the language too bound for its own good? (was Re: Klingon - Terminolog...
- From: [email protected]
- Subject: Re: Is the language too bound for its own good? (was Re: Klingon - Terminolog...
- Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2003 23:11:37 EDT
I tend to fall in the middle on this issue at the present time. I believe
the vocabulary is extraordinarily limited. It is rich enough to say all that
one would likely want to say perhaps, but there is a great deal that doesn't
fall into the category of a non-Klingon item (such as taco or dog). I work on
translations of poetry, song lyrics, and personal letters to help me expand my
knowledge of the language. On many occasions, more than I think there should
be, I was forced to recast the sentence to the point of ruining the message
(the worst example to date is my completely failed attempt to translate the Led
Zeppelin song "Stairway to Heaven" (Heaven to Sto-vo-kor, etc.). Bear in mind,
I did have TKD, KGT, and TKW.
Also keep in mind, that words in English, though may have multiple
meanings, may have completely different words for those other meanings in other
languages. No examples come to mind, but I know in Spanish and English this is
true. So, simply expanding the vocabulary to match the English definitions
is problematic.
As far as making the language easier to learn so that others may feel
more at ease learning it, that is ridiculous. If a person is intimidated by
the complexity of the language, it is likely, they will never lean the language
or any other either. More likely than not, the average person would not
learn tlhIngan Hol not due to the complex nature of the language, but due to the
impracticality of learning the language. Where other than on this list, a
qepHom, or qep'a' could an average person ever use tlhIngan Hol? For us, that is
not of issue, but to the multitude it is.
At any rate, the language is at a crossroads, or nearly coming to one.
It has reached a point where it is developed, and has a large following. It
has reached a point where it needs to be expanded out. Colleges need to
teach it, we need to teach our youth, and we need to make the nature of the
language to be practical. We operate businesses, work with others who are our
friends, we serve the public. We need to use the language in our places of
business when it can be, preach and exhort to others of the useful nature of the
language.
The ultimate truth left is that we and relatively few others will ever
learn and use the language. Eventually the language will die and all we will
have is our experiences here.
-veS joH