tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Jun 26 04:04:22 2005

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Re: Correct/canon usage of numbers

QeS lagh ([email protected])



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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