tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Aug 20 08:36:56 2011
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Re: mu'mey chu': matlh vItlho'qu'
On Sat, Aug 20, 2011 at 5:42 AM, lojmIt tI'wI' nuv <
[email protected]> wrote:
> Okrand isn't just a person. He's the root authority of the language. As
> someone communicating with him, you are not just a person. You are
> representing the general interests of the larger Klingon speaking community.
> If he gives you a vague idea of what a word means or how a grammar detail
> works and you just accept it as he initially presents it without exploring
> the edges of what he's saying and seeking feedback on your interpretation,
> then the rest of the community never gets the details. We are then all stuck
> with the vague sense of things that you were satisfied to accept, and we'll
> argue about it for the next year or longer. And we don't have any feedback
> loop that includes Okrand to make sure we aren't misinterpreting what he
> intended to convey.
Understand two things about this particular collection of words. First, they
appeared in the lyrics of an opera. They had a definite context, with a
parallel English version that naturally wasn't always a word-for-word
translation. Marc Okrand told us explicitly to rely on that context, and to
understand the meanings based on their usage. He clearly did not want to
provide simple or precise definitions, and the only details readily
available to us were on the pages we were reading.
Second, we were speaking only Klingon at the time. I didn't even notice that
until we came across the obviously un-simple <ngIq>. I found myself having
to stop relying on speech only and start using more pantomime and pointing
to ensure I was getting my intent across while we tried to pin down its
meaning.
And then, when you present what you've learned, if you allow a sense of,
> "... and I know more than I'm letting on just now," then you do a great
> disservice to the rest of the community. What good does it do the language
> for a few people to know things the rest of us don't have access to?
"I know a secret and you don't" applies to the qep'a' attendees as well. Qov
was just letting you in on the anticipation when she reported the existence
of words that are said to be in the Klingon vocabulary but for which we
haven't been told the meaning. There's apparently some sort of large
multilingual translation project/product that hasn't been released yet. One
of the people who was part of it (and not at the qep'a') sent Lawrence an
email birthday message containing and explaining a single novel word. The
message said two other things: you can confirm this word with Marc Okrand,
and don't tell anyone else about it. Marc declined to confirm the word (at
least in public), and didn't disagree when we guessed that there was a
nondisclosure agreement involved. I don't think anyone managed to hear the
word when Lawrence tried to pronounce it before he got to the part about
keeping it quiet.
> Then, it's not a language. It's a game, and you just got extra points.
> Congratulations.
>
For we who were present, the process of acquiring the new words was indeed a
game, and I believe everyone playing it won.
-- ghunchu'wI'