[87127] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: The topic marker -'e'
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Christopher Doty)
Wed Nov 25 14:23:33 2009
In-Reply-To: <4B0D763E.5070600@trimboli.name>
From: Christopher Doty <suomichris@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 25 Nov 2009 10:50:58 -0800
To: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
Errors-to: tlhingan-hol-bounce@kli.org
Reply-to: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
Amen and +1.
On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 10:23, David Trimboli <david@trimboli.name> wrote:
> So what makes Klingon linguistically unanalyzable, while every other
> language can be analyzed?
>
> Most of the world's languages are *not* like Latin. Serious linguists no
> longer treat them as if they were. If someone uses inappropriate
> terminology or classifications to describe Klingon, they should be
> corrected, not condemned. No one is claiming that Klingon falls neatly
> into any linguistic categories. But it *can* be analyzed linguistically,
> and doing so is interesting, enlightening, and harmless.
>
> Not everyone is interested in Klingon purely as a mode of communication.
> Most either come to it through Star Trek or through linguistic interest.
> The Trekkies usually find out it's actually hard work, and give up after
> a while. The linguists run into the wall of "You can't analyze Klingon"
> here on this list, mostly coming from you, or those who ape you.
>
> Analyzing the language is a perfectly valid activity to engage in on
> this list, and you're single-handedly trying to quash it, apparently
> because you're afraid of anybody drawing any conclusions that don't
> agree with yours. Why not just let people theorize? Why is that so
> awful? Even if the come up with the wrong answers, why is that so bad?
>
> --
> SuStel
> tlhIngan Hol MUSH
> http://trimboli.name/mush
>
>
>
>
