[1147] in tlhIngan-Hol
How many people know Klingon?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Thu Jul 1 15:50:35 1993
Reply-To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
From: (Mark E. Shoulson) <shoulson@ctr.columbia.edu>
To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
Date: Thu, 1 Jul 93 13:40:04 -0400
In-Reply-To: scott@cs.ust.hk's message of Thu, 1 Jul 93 08:40:10 +0800 <9307010
040.AA04749@cs.ust.hk>
>From: scott@cs.ust.hk
>Date: Thu, 1 Jul 93 08:40:10 +0800
>Content-Length: 599
>I'm curious... how many people do you think that there are,
>world wide, who are capable of:
>1) Holding a five minute conversation in Klingon?
>2) Writing (or saying) a single gramatically correct sentence
> without consulting a book?
>3) Recognizing a sentence as being in Klingon?
If you're really asking about numbers, I don't think I can help you much.
But if you're really after existence of such folks, I can speak from
experience.
I have personally held conversations with Captain Krankor, in real-time,
sometimes with speech, sometimes online. I'd say he (at least) can easily
hold a five-minute conversation. I might be able to, with my dictionary.
I can construct many sentences easily without my dictionary (I know Krankor
can), even complex ones. My major drawback is a small vocabulary.
Recognition is easy, and for that you almost definitely want numbers. I
can't say much about other people, since I haven't spoken to most of you.
There are a few of you out there with whom I have spoken, so I guess there
are another one or two who, in my experience, can also converse in Klingon
(I recall a three-way, real-time conversation once).
~mark
