tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Jun 24 21:36:30 2009
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Re: Klingon orthography
On Jun 23, 2009, at 5:32 PM, Michael Everson wrote:
> I can hardly imagine Paramount forbidding a publication if it didn't
> cost them anything and if the usual arrangements were made.
>
> So that's not a reason not to at least look at good vs. bad options
> for spelling reform.
>
> Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/
Tell that to Hetaq, author of "Secret Fighting Arts of The Warrior
Race". He submitted it for publication by Simon & Schuster. They
rejected it. He tried to get approval several ways. They ignored him.
He published it independently, with a footnote on the cover: "This
book was not prepared, approved, licensed, or endorsed by any entity
involved in creating or producing the Star Trek television series and
films." He thought that would take care of it.
It didn't.
He was successfully sued with a cease and desist order to shut down
all publication of the book. He had a nice book burning party, I'm told.
So far as I know, it's the only banned book I've ever owned.
As for this quite interesting discussion on spelling and orthography,
the main argument against change is that the current system simply
works. The entire population of Klingon speakers can already read it.
They've worked with it for decades without significant problems, and
it works well on Macs, PCs and Unix based computers on normal
keyboards with no training necessary beyond a typical high school
typing class, or even independently developed hunt and peck typing
techniques.
I feel quite certain that I can type an e-mail message using the
current system several times faster than you could type the same
message with your system. Since most Klingon communication occurs via
e-mail, this is a big deal.
The argument about upper and lower case is particularly weak. If a mix
of case is typographically necessary in order to relieve the eye
stress of viewing a single case... well, a normal Klingon sentence in
the current system already provides more variety of upper and lower
case than English does, since most words have both upper and lower
case in them, while only one or two words in your average English
sentence use uppercase. As for the need to start every sentence with
an uppercase letter, I have several friends who never do that in
English. It's a little annoying, but I get used to it.
Which brings me to the simplest solution to dealing with Okrand's
notation of Okrand's language:
Get used to it.
Doq