tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Nov 23 12:41:08 2009

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Re: The topic marker -'e'

Christopher Doty ([email protected])



On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 12:31, ghunchu'wI' 'utlh <[email protected]> wrote:
> Dr. Okrand is a linguist. He wrote TKD for people who are not.

And that means that he used the wrong terms?  No, sorry, but
everywhere Okrand uses a linguistic term in TKD and then explains what
it means, it is completely and totally clear that he is using the word
with its accepted linguistic definition.  He didn't make up new
meanings for the linguistic terms used in TKD so that people who study
Klingon can feel all warm and fuzzy about how special they are because
all the terms they use mean something different.

> ... Whenever people with
> significant knowledge of linguistics come to the Klingon language, the
> usual result is that they either over- or mis-analyze certain features
> until they stop trying to apply what they "know" about languages.

If you really think that the linguists who understand a conlang made
by a linguist don't understand it, it is likely that you, having no
knowledge of linguistics and languages, have misanalyzed Klingon, and
not that the linguists who actually study and understand such things
have screwed up.

Chris






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