[2621] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: tlhIngan Hol qun vIwam - an article
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Tue Jan 18 22:32:08 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: Wed, 19 Jan 94 14:25:03 EDT
In-Reply-To: <9401181739.AA28080@uva.pcmail.Virginia.EDU>; from "Will Martin" a
t Jan 18, 94 12:38 pm
batlh choja', Will Martin quv:
=> ghuy'cha' and ghay'cha' are one word.
I think you misunderstood me. I meant ghuy'cha' is one word, whereas you
had it as "ghuy' cha'". I certainly wouldn't contend that ghuy'cha' and
ghay'cha' are the same word, and have a lot of time for Mark Shoulson's
proposal that one is a lighter version of the other.
=> =It should be noted that
=> =the pronunciation difference between this {cha} (with no glottal stop) and
=> =all the other {cha'}s (with glottal stops) escapes me.
= Sorry, guy. You are COMPLETELY missing my point.
For which my apologies; as you say,
= I will work on the wording of the article to make this distinction more
=clear, since it obviously confused you and you are a very reasonable person
=with a strong background in Klingon.
My thanks. I am also an honourable man ;) (Nah --- that wasn't that funny
a reference.) I guess was misled by the fact that you'd mixed comments on
Lenard's pronunciation with comments about the language in general. From
what I recall of the opening scene of ST1 (the only Trek movie portion
I've ever watched), you're quite right.
=> = Note the beginning glottal stop in {'eH}. There are no directions in
=> =TKD for pronouncing a glottal stop at the beginning of a syllable.
= A later draft of this article accepts this point. I still remark on it,
=but only to point out that English regularly begins open vowels with a
=glottal stop. I add this because I think it is interesting and I think it
=will be interesting to those who may be audience for the article.
You're quite right. It's a point people should be made aware of.
=> = Mr. Okrand has remarked several times that he felt this was not a
=> Dr, if you please.
I don't know what the proper etiquette is about these matters; I guess
Dr Schoen will make some editorial decision or other.
=> Unfortunately, as I've been finding, phonology and OSV are the *only*
=> two areas in which Klingon is even remotely alien; everything else in its
=> grammar is quite boring typologically.
= You worry about being flamed for a tactfully placed comment about
=curiosity over homosexuality among Klingons, and then you write THAT?
Well, let me explain. For the past thirty years, typological linguists
(and I think I want to be one when I grow up) have been collecting data on
what most or all languages on Earth do grammatically. The presence of
D vs. t and q vs. H is an obvious dig at these universals. The sounds
themselves aren't what's wierd about Klingon; it's the fact that, if a
Terran language has a D, it'll also have a T; if it has a t, it's likely
to have a d. This is an in-joke for linguists, and the linguists who
reviewed the dictionary got the joke.
OVS is another (my sloppy typing notwithstanding ;) ). It's a notorious
statistical universal that subjects precede objects; some linguists
refuse to believe Hixkaryana, the Amazon language with OVS, really is OVS
(I think Dik in his Functional Grammar tried to pass it off as OVA(gent),
which he thought was different). It's not as rare as OSV, which I believe
is not attested at all. Incidentally, there is a Hixkaryana New Testament
(The Summer Institute of Linguistics basically gives the linguistics
community most of its information about "exotic" languages; its workers
are typically bible translators. Personally, I'm not at all happy we
have to rely on them for our information, especially when they aren't
always that well-trained, but there you go.) I think I'd like to get hold
of a copy.
Now, my point is that, having been reading about language universals, I
find there's very little else about Klingon that violates them. The
relative clause construction used is rare, but attested. There are quite a
few languages with preposed purpose clauses; and so forth. I should imagine
that, to a linguist, Klingon grammar is like the first couple of sentences
of a joke; the punchline could have had quite a wallop, but doesn't. Now
that I know this, and now that I'm beginning to think on how much more
*interesting* Klingon could have been had it violated some more universals,
I feel disappointed. I don't think this is an unreasonable reaction.
Granted, Okrand was working under pressure, both in generating the language
for the movies and for the TKD. Could he have come up with a wierder
language in the time alloted? Perhaps; perhaps not; I cannot say. He did
find the time to include a rare relative clause type, at least. I do
say it is a pity he didn't. I do also think he could have beefed up
the grammar significantly in the time since 1985. As Barron reports,
Pocket Books excised everything but the most critical stuff in the 2nd
edition; I forget where he got his info from. But... surely he could
have told *us*? Or *someone*?
There is one more reason I feel disappointed with Okrand. I've been involved
in a number of artificial languages, and Okrand simply doesn't behave
like any language inventor I've known --- all of whom make a point of
being very actively involved with their language community. Given the
amount of guesswork Klingon grammarians have to indulge in, I find this
reluctance of his to pariticipate astonishing.
= Perhaps you would like to try your hand at developing a more interesting
=language?
The (re)creation of Vulcan or Romulan has been discussed on this list.
If I get the time, sure, why not? I've already sketched a Ferengi phonology.
(and threw it out; it was aping Irish badly.)
=Perhaps you would like to try to accumulate the following that
=Klingon has oddly collected?
Not really. I'm thinking of linguists' in-jokes here, not Trek phenomena.
Still, there is a market out there for Vulcan, and I believe there would
also be a market for Ferengi and Romulan. Maybe not in terms of Klingon's
mega success, but enough; comparable, perhaps, to Tolkien's languages.
I don't mean this as a statement of war against Klingon, nor see how it
could be taken as such; Lawrence Schoen has, in one of his editorials,
pondered whether the KLI could act in future as a blanket group for
possible future Trek languages. If they do get designed, given the designers
will have more leisure, why not make it linguistically wierder? It won't
mean it'd *better* Klingon; it'd mean such a language might have a different
niche to fill.
Food for thought, in any case. In case it got lost in all my grandstanding:
I look forward to reading your article and its sequels in HolQeD, charghwI';
the history you're relating is of intrinsic interest to all Klingonists.
== == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == ==
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
