tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Jan 22 09:48:33 2006

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RE: Neologisms (was Re: I have a few questions that confuse me...)

d'Armond Speers, Ph.D. ([email protected]) 


Shane MiQogh wrote:

> IT would be a matter of trying to explain the pattern to new
> commers (impossible, i don't know) but if you could, do it.
> In all reality, if you do it, you may think it's a
> disservice, but if you don't do it, you wouldn't be doing the
> language any justice, cause as is, this language is pretty
> much only good for tv shows and conventions, this language
> needs a rather more practical usage. It could reduce teh
> amount of people who wear klingon masks... No offence to those that
> do... 

This attitude is common among people who don't speak it.  I've had
conversations with people on all manner of topics in Klingon, from
linguistics (phonology and syllable structure with Nick Nicholas); to
airplane systems, pilot certification requirements and differences between
US and Canadian practices (Qov); to everyday things like where & what will
we / can we / did we eat (almost every qep'a' attendee).  

We translated Hamlet to Klingon.  Not to point to this work as a gold
standard of correct usage or perfect use, but it does underscore the
flexibility and utility of the language.  And it is not a lone example.  We
also have the sonnets, Much Ado, Gilgamesh, the collected articles published
in Qo'noS QonoS and jatmey, some volume of translated and as yet unpublished
works (Project Poe, Worlds, the Bible, etc.), and individuals' own
compositions.

Qo'noS QonoS is a great example of {tlhIngan Hol} use in the wild.  People
wrote articles about all kinds of things.  Check it out.
/QQ   If you read that and still think the language is
only good for conventions and tv shows, then tell us what deficiencies you
think exist in the language, and challenge us to figure out how to
communicate these ideas.  There are certainly concepts that are difficult to
express, I'm the first to admit.

For me, there is a simple reason to restrict the ways in which the language
grows:  I use the language to communicate.  If I simply add a new word that
I create myself every time I bump up against a concept that is difficult to
express, then before long I'm speaking not {tlhIngan Hol}, but {d'Armond
Hol}, and nobody else would understand me unless I called "time out" and
explained what each of my new words means.  Meanwhile, other speakers of the
language are doing the same thing, and they likewise have to explain their
new words to me.  Maybe there's overlap between our new words, and then we
have to decide which, if either, of them to agree on.  Add to this the
problem that different people will bring different levels of skill to bear,
and so a less-skilled person may add more words than a more-skilled person
might, because they have not yet mastered all of the available tools to
communicate their ideas.  Multiply this problem by the number of speakers
taking liberty to create words, and the task of communication immediately
becomes far far worse by adding words, instead of easier as was intended.

ngabwI' is correct to point out that this makes the task of learning to
speak the language far more complicated for the beginner, but I would argue
that this applies also to skilled speakers (reduced ability to communicate).


It would be more instructive to learn from ways that natural languages
develop through usage.  And in fact we do see {tlhIngan Hol} growing this
way, in some limited cases.  We have the slang usage presented in KGT, but
we also have our own slang that was created out of necessity or humor.  Some
coinages remain because they fill a need (HIlel); some remain because they
are funny or are a part of our oral tradition ("DaH jIyID!"), and some are
canonized ('I', ngech).  These occur more or less spontaneously within the
community of speakers and either catch on or disappear after limited use.
They do not tend to appear as the result of non-skilled speakers trying to
accomplish some translation task in isolation ("hey everybody, here's my
list of words we need so I can translate Douglas Adams!").  In these limited
ways growth and development of the language is a good thing, and I would
take the rate of this growth as a good indicator of the how healthy the
language is.  Or perhaps more accurately, how active the community of
speakers is.

Sorry for the length.  

--Holtej

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