tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Jan 23 11:50:30 2010

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jatlh HubwI' jIH 'ach ngotlhwI' jIHbe'

Fiat Knox ([email protected]) 

And then there's me.

Not a linguist, not employed in computers, and in terms of my being a Star Trek fan I'm not that involved in Trekfandom any more - I don't collect memorabilia or wear a Klingon outfit. I can't even afford the DVD collections. I just watch the shows on TV.

However, from 1992 to the present day, whenever somebody in the UK wants to talk seriously about Klingon, for whatever reason, it would seem that I am the man they turn to. They call me; I go; I speak; I come home.

For my part, regardless of whatever attitude might be floating on these boards, I do my best to promote tlhIngan Hol as an activity that expands the mind regardless of how much interest you might have in Star Trek overall, and a fun language to learn, particularly here on this mailing list.

And yes, the KLI always gets a strong mention - and always in a positive light. The work some people have put in here (translations of Hamlet and Macbeth, for instance, and running this list and the other activities) is staggering, and it it always a pleasure to point this out at interviews.

Above all, I defend learning Klingon against unwarranted snipes from ignorant journalists who see only the chance to perform a hatchet job on Trekkers in general and Klingonists in particular. I keep it light, but when one of them tries to go too far I put them down.

> It's an odd language and an odd group. Quirky and
> interesting. Well worth the required compromises.

That's what I speak up for, and occasionally find myself defending from the ignorant.

Other people do their bit for tlhIngzn Hol. This is how I do my bit.

Peace.


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
We are now leaving the Kingdom of Star Trek and entering normal space.


--- On Sat, 23/1/10, Doq <[email protected]> wrote:

> wej De'wI'mey vIghaj, 'ach QIntetlhvam naw'laH wa' De'wI'vam neH. vaj
> qub vISuchmeH wanI'. wanI'vam vItaghDI' Sochvatlh QInmey vItu'.
> jIDoy'.

> One of the topics that has come up recently is the attitude
> that linguists relatively new to the list discover here.
> There's a history for that. One of the more interestingly
> unique aspects of the Klingon language is the population of
> its speakers.

> The Klingon language was invented and developed by a
> linguist. The person who started the Klingon Language
> Institute is also a linguist. Note that neither of them is
> particularly spectacular at actually speaking the language.
> They both openly admit this. They have gotten good enough at
> it, but it took them an uncommonly long time.

> While there are exceptions to any generality, Klingon has
> one very noticeable quirk when it comes to its speakers. Not
> all, but most of them fall into one of three categories:

> 1. Linguists

> 2. Star Trek fans

> 3. Computer programmers and tech support engineers.

> Again, with exceptions, the surprisingly consistent
> tendency is that the computer geeks acquire most of their
> skill within a year and in that time tend to rise to a
> higher level than either of the other two groups. Most of
> the flame wars on the list tend to involve the linguists.

> In both cases, the passion fueling the arguments is that
> the group has, over time, come to recognize those who
> understand the language well, and is a wee bit hesitant to
> recognize outside sources of authority that are impatient
> about any interest in actually earning the respect that they
> assume that they are due. The fights are, in my humble
> opinion, less about the language than they are about respect
> and recognition. In other words, ego.

> Linguist: Why should I respect your opinion? I'm a linguist
> with credentials. I know about DOZENS of languages in far
> greater levels of detail than any of you have ever acquired
> in ANY language. Who are you to tell me that I don't
> understand this toy language better than you do?

> Klingonist: Why should I respect your opinion? You are new
> to this list and you are saying things that prove that you
> don't understand the language very well.
> 
> You have no idea how many times we've been through this.
> 
> The list is old enough that it has had people who have
> crossed these borders. For SuStel, Klingon was the doorway
> into linguistics -- a topic that has become fascinating for
> him. He did not have the expensive education that brought
> most linguists to the topic, but through years of persistent
> and sincere interest and self-directed study, his skills at
> linguistic analysis have proven to be impressive, even
> without those magic letters after his name. ghuyDo' wa' was
> fifteen frigging years old when he came here, convincing a
> lot of professional linguists that he must be a faculty
> member somewhere. The group got him a scholarship. We
> haven't heard from him since. Holtej is a linguist who
> speaks the language better than most of us, but then he
> started out as a hybrid, given that his area of expertise
> always involved both language and computer technology, and
> unlike most linguists, he respects those who lack his
> academic credentials and he has very patiently made
> significant contributions to the list not as a massive ego,
> but as a member of a group he has cared about for years.
> DloraH started out as a Star Trek fan and through raw and
> impressive persistence for many years has hard earned a
> level of skill far beyond that of most members of that
> group. He deserves to be THE most inspiring person for Star
> Trek fans interested in speaking the language. Even with its
> warts, ghIlgameS is an impressive translation.
> 
> The cultural problem with people who enter this group with
> a deep background of linguistics is rooted in their
> impatience to be recognized as remarkably skilled and
> deserving of exceptional authority, and their lack of
> interest in recognizing the authority of others who came by
> their skills through other paths. They have a learning
> disability: If the facts of the language that have been
> polished through years of use here and consultations with
> Okrand are different than what they expect from their
> experience in other areas of linguistics, then they have a
> great deal of difficulty letting go of their erroneous
> interpretations and listening to anyone explain to them how
> this thing actually works. It is easier to fill a void left
> by lack of understanding than it is to replace the contents
> of an error created by misunderstanding.
> 
> It is not that linguists are not welcome here. It is that
> people in general find it easier here if you enter with a
> sincere interest in learning more than declaring. There is a
> difference between saying, "How does {-vaD} work?" vs.
> saying, "{-vaD} works like THIS, RIGHT?" and then arguing in
> many lengthy messages that your original interpretation
> absolutely must be correct and anyone who disagrees is
> simply ignorant.
> 
> Words like "stupid" don't help.
> 
> Participants welcome participants. Egos are a problem,
> though we work with that. We all have one. I certainly do,
> though I try, pathetically unskilled at it as I am, to check
> my ego at the door. The language matters more here than I
> do. Also, community matters here more than I do.
> 
> And yes, I'm one of the computer geeks who struggled with
> the language for a few months and then, in a bizarre flash I
> still can't explain, I suddenly began to understand the
> language. It's as if some part of my brain that never had a
> purpose before just lit up and I started writing things
> people easily understood. I became recognized as someone
> with a highly unusual skill at expressing things in Klingon.
> I'd write things that linguists sincerely thought the
> language wasn't equipped to express. This recognition
> stroked my ego, and up to that point in my life, I had
> carried the burden of low self-esteem rather heavily.
> Suddenly, I was one of (then) half a dozen people in the
> world with this unique skill. It's hard to put down
> something that earns that level of recognition, especially
> for a person with an otherwise unrecognized life.
> 
> So, what of MY authority with the language? What is MY
> street credential?
> 
> * I was one of the founding members of the KLI. I was at
> qep'a' wa'DIch and at every qep'a' from then to the meeting
> in Brussels. 
> 
> * I helped the group a lot, putting in an insane number of
> hours assembling resources still in use here. 
> 
> * I had the surprising honor of presenting Okrand with his
> first complete, sorted list of his words. He had not been
> organizing them before then. I was, at the time, the only
> person who had the foresight to note the source of each word
> in my personal dictionary. I made one mistake in that
> dictionary later discovered by Okrand, and he subsequently
> added it to the word list in KGT, by fiat declaring the
> error to be a non-error. 
> 
> * My first personal dictionary was an MS Word file. I later
> created a new one from scratch, hand writing it in Graphiti
> into JFile on a Palm Pilot. I started from scratch again to
> create an MS Access database (my least useful project) and
> more recently created it again in Bento. I've honed my
> skills at deciding on the most useful metadata for each word
> and I've visited each word quite a few times now. I was one
> of the beta testers for that iPhone app mentioned recently.
> I created the New Words List still used on the KLI Web site.
> I do words like Voragh does canon.
> 
> * I had an interview with Okrand published in HolQeD often
> quoted here. While I'll never have another similar
> opportunity, I got to enjoy a relaxed evening at a
> restaurant with the man. I did my best to turn that into a
> useful resource for the rest of the group, and while the
> interview was imperfect on my part, it succeeded in
> clarifying a number of things in one burst that otherwise
> would have taken years to resolve, if ever. It is rare that
> Okrand gives that level of detail about Klingon grammar and
> words. I was quite lucky to get that opportunity. I have no
> heroes, but Okrand is one heck of a nice guy. Interesting,
> intelligent, respectful, witty, quiet, and intrigued by the
> places the language has gone and by the places the language
> has taken him. He never thought it would go this far, or
> last this long. It was a whim that acquired its own
> significance quite beyond anything he had imagined. He has
> held a beautiful object in his hands that never would have
> existed if he had not come up with a word for a thing that
> didn't exist, and later someone made that thing. The power
> of it intimidates him sometimes. He is a bit awed by it at
> times.
> 
> * My office has two awards posted. One is for 20 years of
> service in computer support. The other is for being a Friend
> Of Maltz. I'm one of the people who has had the rare
> opportunity to ask Okrand for a new word. 
> 
> * I still cherish my red, leather-bound copy of the Klingon
> Hamlet with my name in the credits, and my copy of the
> banned book on Klingon self-defense techniques in which I
> wrote the intro presented in pIqaD. permey law' vIghaj.
> 
> While in my daily personal life, I know zero people who
> care about the Klingon language, I still carry a lot of geek
> pride in my accomplishments here. It's my secret life.
> Though a lot of people who know me know about it, they don't
> REALLY know about it.
> 
> Linguists who already have linguistics as a source of pride
> and accomplishment in other contexts tend to come here
> expecting to bring all of that with them so that they don't
> have to put in those hours or even work very hard at
> learning the details of the language as it is, rather than
> as they would have made it, given their broader context of
> expertise. They are not satisfied with whatever sources of
> pride they have in that other world of linguistics. They
> want that recognition here, too, without having to do much
> to earn it. There's a reason for the push-back against this
> attitude. It is less cooperative than competitive and it
> doesn't have much traction here.
> 
> I'll also point out that while creating a Klingon parser is
> an impressive undertaking, it is not really work done in
> service to the Klingon speaking community. It will never
> help anyone learn to speak Klingon better. It may act as a
> crutch to allow people who never will learn how to speak
> Klingon get meaning out of something a Klingon speaker has
> written, but it won't improve someone's skill or increase
> their resources toward that end. It's mostly an exercise for
> yourself, to prove to you that you understand the language
> well enough to create a program that can translate Klingon
> into English. Meanwhile, that software will never understand
> the Klingon language any better than you do, and you show
> signs of some significant misunderstandings.
> 
> Unfortunately for me, while this odd source of self-esteem
> was good for my personal development in some ways, it also
> gave me a level of authority that I honestly didn't handle
> very well. I wasn't nice to people. I was mean at times,
> partly in response to how mean others were to me for no
> obvious reason. Egos abraded and I just got tired of the
> senseless meanness. I disliked the meanness that I felt
> coming out of me beyond my control. I stopped coming to
> qep'a'. I participate rarely here.
> 
> There have been a lot of self-declared leaders here, fueled
> by their unjustified confidence that, without any street
> credentials with the language earned within the group, they
> have the authority to tell other people how things work, and
> put down anybody who disagrees. Pretty much without
> exception, those people don't last very long. Impatience got
> them into this mess and it's not a good tool for endurance.
> 
> So, if you have any interest in the language in the long
> term, I'd suggest applying more patience and less authority.
> When someone explains to you that your interpretation of
> {-vaD} doesn't work, look harder at it. This isn't some
> pipsqueak with an ignorant opinion. He's not arguing with
> you because he doesn't like you (or some other motive
> different than simply wanting to help you understand the
> language better). This is someone who has been working with
> the language and the group for decades. As insightful as you
> may think yourself to be and as deeply studied in a broader
> context as you are, there is an excellent possibility that
> he's right and you are wrong. If you can't accept that, then
> you are well on your way toward becoming yet another flash
> in the continuing history of the Klingon language.
> 
> In other words, be nice, and listen to your elders.
> 
> If you were coming into a remote village of people who
> speak a language hitherto unknown to western civilization,
> you would probably not be arguing with the natives about how
> the grammar works. This is kind of like that.
> 
> We want more participants. I feel bad for participating so
> little these days. My life has provided me with other
> sources of self-esteem that take up enough time that I can't
> justify participating here much. The other sources are also
> never as mean to me as some people are here, from time to
> time, so ultimately, I find the other sources a lot more
> appealing. Still, it's hard to put down something that I can
> still do better than all but a dozen or two people in the
> world. My wife is away for the weekend, vaj naDev jIH, 'ej
> Sochvatlh QIn vIlaDpu'.
> 
> I respect those dozen or two people a lot. Anyone
> interested in participating here in the long run would do
> well to do the same. They've earned their street credentials
> here. Their lists would be at least as long as mine. I'm not
> the guy. I'm one of the guys. They know what they are
> talking about. There are disagreements that will never be
> resolved within the group, but if you find yourself pretty
> much in a minority of one with an opinion, it's more likely
> that you are mistaken than it is that you have a unique
> insight into a language you have been speaking for months
> that others have spoken for decades.
> 
> I have been a minority of one in my interpretations of
> several points of grammar. I see those as battles lost. If
> the Klingon speaking community doesn't see a specific issue
> my way, then I accept that I was wrong and move on. I have
> been right enough times to feel okay about my losses. I've
> hated to see tools for clear expression of certain concepts
> fade into oblivion and I've hated to see things introduced
> into the language that increased ambiguity and forced even
> more expressions to be broken down into even smaller, more
> numberous sentences, and I've REALLY HATED OBVIOUSLY BAD
> CANON but I recognize that the community, with special
> emphasis on Okrand's vote, defines the language. I don't.
> Mine is but one voice. This is a choir, not a backup group
> for my solos. I sing with us, or not at all. I'm not the
> director.
> 
> We have no director, except Okrand, and he doesn't direct
> very much or very often. The group isn't waiting for the
> right person to step in and take over to fill that void.
> Instead, there is an informal band of experienced voices
> with a loose and imperfect consensus; a group of people who
> share a language and celebrate its use. We are quite open to
> adding new people to that list of experienced voices, but
> not without actually having the experience first. That's the
> part that has more to do with community than it does with
> linguistics. Language exists within communities, or it isn't
> really language. It's just a linguistic exercise that is
> never used to express anything meaningful. Language lives in
> community, or it doesn't live.

> Okrand created a linguistic exercise. The KLI turned it
> into a language. I didn't do that. We did it, together. You
> don't have license to turn it back into a linguistic
> exercise, except perhaps as a "read only" activity where you
> lack creative options. Okrand is the only linguist who gets
> to create linguistic stuff in Klingon. You do have license
> to join the community and learn the language even better
> than you already have, especially if you spend more time
> speaking it than arguing about it.

> It's an odd language and an odd group. Quirky and
> interesting. Well worth the required compromises.

That's what I speak up for, and occasionally find myself defending from the ignorant.

> tlhoy jIjatlhlI', 'ach jIghungchoH, vaj pItlh. jIjatlhpu'.

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