[Tlhingan-hol] Lament (Re: A demonstration of aspect we can all follow)

[De'vID jonpIn]

> --- On Thu, 6/7/12, David Trimboli and many others wrote:
>>lots of stuff

ter'eS:
> [poD] ...  if we work hard enough, we can make this language totally unusable.

Despite the disagreement about the exact technical meaning of the type
7 suffixes, people don't generally seem to be unable to understand
each other's Klingon sentences.

I actually found the discussion very useful.  As a result of it, I
read up on grammatical aspect and re-read sections of TKD, and I would
say I have a better understanding of aspect (both in and outside of
Klingon) than I did before.

ter'eS:
> If anybody wonders why more newbies don't post here,

This is a problem.  I guess back in the day when there were no or very
few experts, most of the conversations on the list happened at a
beginner's or an intermediate level.  It's not that there's a lack of
beginners, but newbies are intimidated by long posts entirely in
Klingon (several people have told me this off-list), or long posts in
English about arcane corner cases of grammar.

Maybe a solution to this would be to split up the mailing list, and
have a beginner's list where posts have to have at least as much
English as Klingon and discussions about controversial or advanced
points of grammar are now allowed.

ter'eS:
> I'd say that this constant tendency to rethink long-established patterns, this "everything you know is wrong" mindset, goes a long way towards explaining it.

I haven't detected "a constant tendency to rethink long-established
patterns".  Aside from this recent spate of posts about aspect, what
other occurrences of this do you have in mind?

ter'eS:
> I'm pretty much done with Klingon, and the way a once-firm concensus about how it operates has been eroded in the last few years is a large part of the reason why.

Was there ever a "firm consensus" about how it operates?  I think
there's as much consensus as there ever was about most of Klingon
grammar -- otherwise, people wouldn't understand each other, and yet
people do.

I would be sad if a skilled Klingon speaker leaves the community on
account of heated debates about grammar, as would I think other
members of the community.

-- 
De'vID