[2601] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: naDev jIchu'
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Tue Jan 18 04:03:16 1994
Reply-To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@klingon.East.Sun.COM>
From: nsn@vis.mu.OZ.AU (Nick NICHOLAS)
To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@klingon.East.Sun.COM>
Date: Tue, 18 Jan 94 19:57:38 EDT
In-Reply-To: <9401131400.AA06085@hawk.nest>; from "Al Goodnis" at Jan 13, 94 9:
00 am
batlh choja', Al Goodnis quv:
=For me english punctuation has never 'felt' right on tlhIngan sentences,
=but what else can you do to delimit one sentence from the next? As a beginner
=it helps to know where I should stop translating. I have enough trouble when
=trying to translate never mind worrying about when to stop.
People know when one sentence starts and another ends. Some languages have
no punctuation; they run all their words together. I wish luck to the
Klingonist who would fail to delimit his sentences thus. Given that we
need to punctuate, one scheme is as good as the next, I feel.
= So this leaves another issue for you guru's, since the TKD has no
=punctuation rules, and since none are implied, how do you construct sentence
s
=without them and still retain readability?
One, by indentation. Two, by ignoring the TKD. You do realise, yes?, that
1) the examples in TKD are all single sentences; 2) TKD contains no
pIqaD, just Okrand's misguided romanisations ("H" indeed!). So I don't
think TKD's omissions should be binding. I do know real Klingon prose
(such as, I like to think, I've been penning) is *difficult*, though not
impossible, to read without an abundance of commas, at least; and I see
no good reason to make life harder for those Terrans who would read Klingon.
=> As I say repeatedly, I don't care what Klingons may do. We're not native
=> speakers. We don't have access to their subtle intonational cues and
=> conventions of phrasing. Anything we can do to make reading Klingon text
=> easier, we should --- which is why I use such a plethora of commas, though
=> this too has been reduced.
=Make it easier for who? In a sense you could be saying, well French
=has too few commas and since I am not a native speaker I'm going to add as man
y
=as I want... That would not be correct. As a speaker you should do your best
=to follow whatever grammer and punctuation rules there are, even if it means
=none.
No. No, no, no. You see, you shouldn't compare Klingon to French. French
uses our alphabet, and has punctuation. Compare it to Chinese. And assume
the Chinese don't have any punctuation (I believe it's a recent introduction,
but could be mistaken). And you are *not* learning ideograms, you're learning
Wade-Giles or Pinyin romanisation. And you're reading long romanised Chinese
texts. Why *not* avail yourself of punctuation? If you want to read Chinese
like a native, why waste your time on romanisation at all? Read the original
script. Okrand romanisation isn't intended for Klingons; but for Terran
students of Klingon. I think it's just needess folly to refuse entry to
the Terran paraphenalia which go along with romanisation. *You* try reading
a reasonably involved (ie more complex than The Cat Sat On The Mat) text
in Klingon --- let's not mention my ones, take Richard Kennaway's Heart
Sutra instead) with no punctuation. You didn't fool me, btw, Richard :) ; your
use of a double space was as much punctuation as a full stop would have been.
And whether we use spaces, indentation, or our usual squiggles and dots,
is much of a oneness; they're all conveying the same thing, in pretty much
the same way.
===
Nick Nicholas, Breather {le'o ko na rivbi fi'inai palci je tolvri danlu}
nsn@krang.vis.mu.oz.au -- Miguel Cervantes tr. Jorge LLambias
