tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Jun 26 04:04:22 2005
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Re: Correct/canon usage of numbers
- From: "QeS lagh" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Correct/canon usage of numbers
- Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 21:04:05 +1000
- Bcc:
ja' Voragh:
>If Okrand has been inconsistent in this, so have other languages. E.g.
>English "twenty one" vs. "twenty-one" vs. (rarely) "twentyone" or Spanish
>"veinte y uno" vs. "veintiuno".
jIjang:
>And to a certain extent, that's what we should expect from Klingon, too. I
>like the fact that there are a lot of things we can do in a few different
>ways: it means that it's possible to develop your own personal "style" of
>Klingon.
jang K'Lyssia joH:
>Actually is it so much style as it is the difference between grammatically
>proper syntax, commonly spoken syntax, lazy syntax?
>I tend to believe the later as that shows the language as living and
>evolving just as the living languages of Earth are, because it is being
>used.
My comment was intended to mean merely that variety in canon allows those
humans who speak Klingon to have some choice in how they do things; I wasn't
intending to comment on how Klingons make such choices. And in a lot of
cases, there's no canon evidence to say one way or the other.
For instance, my own Klingon has a number of features that I may not
necessarily share with others on the list. I tend to put {-taHvIS} clauses
at the beginning of a sentence, to use {HIja'} instead of {HISlaH}, and to
say {Qe'Daq vIghoS} in preference to {Qe' vIghoS} (and they're just the ones
I know about). That's just the way *I* have come to do things, though, and
those who do otherwise are not being ungrammatical: {-taHvIS} clauses can
come at the end of a sentence, and I know that taD 'utlh usually uses
{HISlaH}, and is one of the few who do so. {HIja'} is considered by many to
be easier to pronounce - so in that case, yes, it is a matter of laziness, I
suspect! {{:)
Nevertheless, your comment raises a good point. Okrand has written a
considerable amount about ungrammaticality, both intentional and
unintentional, in Klingon speech; there's a whole chapter on it in KGT, and
it makes for very interesting reading. (However, any ungrammatical examples
that filter down to us are more likely to be intentional - used for impact
in speeches and rhetoric - than anything else.)
That being said, in this instance, I seriously doubt that {wa'maH} and {wa'
maH} would be pronounced very differently. IMHO this is a matter of
orthography more than anything else, and as we've seen, Okrand has used
both. And acceptable variation in usages between people is a fact in any
language, even those on the very brink of extinction.
Savan,
QeS lagh
taghwI' pabpo' / Beginners' Grammarian
not nItoj Hemey ngo' juppu' ngo' je
(Old roads and old friends will never deceive you)
- Ubykh Hol vIttlhegh
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