[1418] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: The history of the Klingon language
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Sat Aug 21 17:04:04 1993
Reply-To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
From: trI'Qal <DOBELBOWER%OPUS@cutter.mco.edu>
To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
Date: 21 Aug 1993 15:40:36 -0400 (EDT)
X-Vms-To: CUTTER::IN%"tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us"
>These facts led me to think that perhaps tlhIngan Hol is a constructed
>language, invented after Klingons discovered space-flight (perhaps even
>because of it in order to have a common language for the navy), hence the
>luxury of brief words for complex technical terms. An argument against this
>is that it is not perfectly regular, but this could be for a number of
>reasons; perhaps it started as a creole and so inherited some irregularities
>from its parents, or perhaps in the course of it being spoken for some
>hundreds of years irregularities have crept in for cultural reasons unknown
>to us.
>
>Whaddya think folks?
>
>
>lIjwi'
Although I find this concept intriguing, I disagree.
First, there is already a race that created it's own language. This is a very
lame reason, I know, but what are the odds of it happening twice?
Second, there are more patterns than just CVC in Hol'e'. I believe I have seen
several cases of CVCVC and CVCCVC. More likely, I think that the ancient (and
modern!) tlhInganpu' preferred their root words very short. As time went by,
and words became obsolete, the simply used them for new creations. And yes,
more than likely they got a lot of homophones. I know we don't have many of
them so far, but we do have some... more than likey, we were just given the
most common of them from our 'sources' (Blech, I actually have to talk like a
tera'ngan for this! {{;) ), and have not yet heard of the rest, becasue they
are 'technical terms'.
Please understand that I am not a language expert in any way, shape or form.
This is, again, just MHO.
--HoD trI'Qal, tlhwD "lIy So'"
