[2641] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: tlhIngan Hol qun vIwam - an article
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Wed Jan 19 12:19:51 1994
Reply-To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@klingon.East.Sun.COM>
From: Will Martin <whm2m@uva.pcmail.virginia.edu>
To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@klingon.East.Sun.COM>
Date: Wed, 19 Jan 94 11:43:51 EST
On Jan 18, 10:27pm, Nick NICHOLAS wrote:
...
> 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.
I think Okrand took this on as a lark. Once he got into it, he decided
to enjoy the challenges of dealing with the movies and retrofitting the
language to suit the needs of the scenes. His primary goal was to give the
language the kind of consistency in cannon that other aspects of the whole
Star Trek universe have. (It is a lot MORE consistent than some of the
science aspects...) Still, I think that it was largely a very involved joke
for him and he enjoyed it.
Then TKD sold a quarter of a million copies. Casual remarks to Trekkers
had more serious repercussions than he expected. He has been quoted as saying
that he feels he has to be VERY careful about what he says about the
language.
Add in that he may have some sort of contractual limits with his
publisher on what he can add to the language without them. Finally realize
that his focus is on the use of the language in the movies. He does not want
to create now what might be unforseen problems in some future movie. He
probably wants the unstructured freedom to construct whatever he wants to
suit the needs of ST7 (or later).
I'm sure he'd rather have Pocket Books allow a third edition of TKD than
to tell us stuff directly. There is the issue of royalties... Then again, the
man probably has a social life...
My point is that he is not a linguist creating an artificial language in
a normal environment (assuming that creating an artificial language has the
potential of happening in a normal environment). tlhIngan Hol is not just a
language. The phenominon exists in the intersection between the subculture of
linguists, Hollywood, a publisher, Trekdom, HolQeD and the InterNet. This is
WAAAAAAAAAAY different. Remember, part of its weirdness has very little to do
with the grammar. It is weird because it exists in the strange mix of
environments it has intersected.
And it all flows through one interesting, but almost alarmingly normal
person named Marc Okrand. He could have done better. He could do better now,
but overall, he could have done MUCH worse, and he could begin doing much
worse. He gave us enough tools to play with endlessly, and he has not screwed
things up with too many revisions channeled through inconsistently accessible
avenues. We have TKD and two tapes as primary sources. We have the movies as
secondary sources. The TV shows and novels are very nearly useless.
-- charghwI'
