tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Jan 26 11:44:29 2010

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Re: jatlhwI'pu Holtejpu' je

Tracy Canfield ([email protected]) 

Doq is obviously directing this at me, since he makes dismissive
remarks about my parser - a parser he's never seen, so I can't imagine
on what grounds he's evaluated it.

Calling people stupid?  I've never done this.  Arguing for an
interpretation of a grammar point?  I've asked questions - and a
search through my sent messages shows that I've thanked people for
information and for corrections.  I can't find that I've ever argued
for anything.  I can't find that I've ever declared anything.  I can't
find that I've ever asked for anything other than answers about things
that weren't clear to me from the canonical sources - certainly not
for any kind of recognition or leadership.  The only thing I've done
is try to get a clearer understanding of Klingon from people who've
worked with it more.

And in return for coming here and asking questions, I get treated to
lectures like this one, which have absolutely no relationship to
anything I've ever done, said, or posted here.  It is immensely
frustrating for people to attribute to me words I've never said, and
then berate me for saying them.

It seems to me that it simply does not matter what I do or say here.
I'm going to be subjected to this kind of abuse just for being a
linguist, like we're some sort of hive mind, and if one of us did
something you don't care for, you might as well just take it out on
the nearest one.

Finally, I've personally watched experienced Klingon speakers turning
to the iPhone and other electronic dictionaries, or even print
dictionaries, when they needed a word that wasn't coming to mind.
There've been at least two Klingon parsers within the community -
d'Armond Speers's pojwI', and another - I'm afraid I've forgotten the
author - that was written up in HolQeD.  These sorts of tools clearly
have a place in the Klingon community, and I don't see why there
wouldn't be room for another one that goes further.

2010/1/23 d'Armond Speers, Ph.D. <[email protected]>:
>
> Beautifully written and clearly expressed.  The only thing that I would add, from the perspective of the linguist, is that linguists expect languages to behave certain ways because, well, they do.  But Klingon doesn't necessarily, because its origin is artificial, not the product of normal language acquisition processes, but the process of human invention.  This is part of the reason that linguists who study the language get confused, because their normal assumptions can only carry them so far.  The real test for the linguist studying Klingon is to recognize linguistic signposts when they see them, but not to make assumptions about features of the language beyond what is extant.  It is extremely easy to fall into that trap, and I did it as recently as this past year, on the list (I was asking questions based upon assumptions of Universal Grammar).
>
> --Holtej
>
> On Jan 23, 2010, at 11:59 AM, Doq 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'.
>>
>> I don't write here often anymore, and that is unlikely to change. I've forgotten the password to this account and one computer has it memorized for me. It's not a computer I use that often anymore; it's getting a bit long in the tooth and when it goes, so do I. So, I'll write a longer message this time than I usually allow myself.
>>
>> 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. What many interpret to be arrogance tends to run high in this group because (again, with exceptions) new Klingonists who begin with a background in linguistics tend to have an interest in walking into a group that has been doing this for decades and try to "take over" the group, typically through one of two methods:
>>
>> 1. Suggest that we invent a lot of new words. Okrand obviously doesn't care enough about the language to come up with the vocabulary "I" want fast enough, so "we" should do it "ourselves" and screw Okrand. It will be "our" language (led by "me"). This involves a self-declaration of a level of authority "for" the group that the group never actually consented to.
>>
>> 2. Take radical interpretations of marginal points of grammar and declare what they "really" mean and try to ram these interpretations through, based on the linguistic authority of the author. As a corollary, they will also often extend a grammatical element far beyond its design capacity, resulting in utterances nobody understands, thereby failing the most elemental test of what constitutes language.
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> tlhoy jIjatlhlI', 'ach jIghungchoH, vaj pItlh. jIjatlhpu'.
>>
>> Doq
>>
>>
>
> --
> d'Armond Speers, Ph.D.
> [email protected]
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

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