[426] in tlhIngan-Hol
pIqaD issues
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Thu Jan 7 12:08:30 1993
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
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Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
Reply-To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
From: Allan C. Wechsler <ACW@RIVERSIDE.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 10:01-0500
In-Reply-To: <9301062157.AA06050@codex.com>
Cap'n Krankor and I obviously have different agendas, with regard to our
hopes for pIqaD. I think our disagreement stems from what we expect to
get out of an authentic Klingon orthography. Probably this is an
esthetic difference that we cannot expect to "resolve", but we can
achieve an understanding of each other's viewpoints. For this reason
(bear with me, dear readers) I'd like to try to explain why I hope for a
quirky, irregular pIqaD.
If I may, I'd like to draw a parallel with evolutionary biology.
Suppose you are interested in finding out the evolutionary path by which
an organism arrived at its current form and way of life. Examples of
perfect adaptation, while striking, are not illuminating. It is the
quirky, bizarre, almost jury-rigged adaptations that reveal the
evolutionary history of an organism and, indeed, convince us that
evolution has taken place. The three odd bones that connect the inner
ear to the cochlea, for example, are derived from pieces of jaw, which
in turn descend from gill supports in primitive fish. Our vermiform
appendices which currently do nothing except get inflamed and
necessitate minor surgery, once secreted substances that helped digest a
more leafy diet. History is revealed by quirks.
The same is true in orthography. The "silent e" at the end of some
English words was once audible. Now it serves the weird function of
(unreliably) marking vowel length. Every single irregularity in the
English spelling system can be explained by studying the history of
English. To a lesser extent, by reasoning in reverse, the history of
English can be reconstructed from modern spelling.
I am hoping to receive some clues about the history of Klingon from the
orthography. If pIqaD has been redesigned recently by a zealous
reformer, much information about past stages of the language will have
been erased.
(Speaking of zealous reform, can we drop the upper-case D, I, and S
among friends? They looks awful. I'm sure we can remember to retract
our tongues without posting 14-pixel-high reminders.)
