[Tlhingan-hol] KLI CanonHom (was: Facebook Translation Project [FTP]: weekdays)

[André Müller]

wa' DoS wIqIplaw' jIH SoH je.

My mentioning "suggested by De'vID jonpIn" was nothing more than an
example, could've been te'reS or 'anan naHQun or voragh as well. I didn't
mean to imply any connection to someone coining the term computer virus. I
only wanted to use someone's name. ;)

In more widespread conlang communities such as Esperanto speakers, there
are regional variations as well. In my hometown of Leipzig we (Esperanto
speakers) have a few idiosyncrasies, often for terms typical of German or
even the local dialect of German, which often come from puns or
way-too-literal translations. So we're aware that they're not official and
might not even be understood by speakers from other countries or even
regions in Germany. But we enjoy using them, it's like using inside jokes.
I imagine it to be similar for people who speak Klingon fluently on a more
regular base.

Greetings,
- André

2012/3/3 De'vID jonpIn <de.vid.jonpin at gmail.com>

> André Müller:
> > I always used "Hogh jaj wa'" for Monday, but a
> > list would have many other proposals for this, each with a note or linked
> > explanation, noting that not the whole world starts counting the week on
> > Monday,
>
> KGT provides a ready-made solution to this
> different-vocabulary-among-different-groups-of-speakers problem:
> Sep/yoS/veng Hol.  I have no idea what a person means when they say
> {jaj wa'} any more than when they say "the first day (of the week)",
> but if yISra'el Sep Dab then I can make a guess that's reasonably
> likely to be right.
>
> So for those who'd like to compile a list of suggestions for
> vocabulary for Terran concepts that Klingons don't exactly have, just
> make up a region or district and assign your vocabulary to it.  Look,
> in *{toQnaw Hol} the word for "hamburger" is {Ha'DIbaH ghIH tIr ngogh
> je}, and (say) the word for "Sunday" is {(tera' Hogh) jaj wa'}.  Maybe
> {jaj wa'} maps to "Monday" more naturally in {ta' Hol} or other
> dialects -- I have no idea -- but if two speakers agree they're both
> speaking *{toQnaw Hol}, then they both mean "Sunday" when they say
> {jaj wa'} and so on.  (*{toQnaw Hol} is a dialect spoken by some
> Klingons who have traveled to Earth and spent some time there, enough
> to agree on a pool of words to describe common Earth things but not
> enough to have coined truly native Klingon terms to name them.)
>
> As I understand it, something like this already happens to some
> extent.  As Qov has pointed out, Qanqor and 'ISqu' undoubtedly have
> their own {mu'mey ru'} that the rest of us won't understand.  I've
> also heard that the Seattle area has a number of {po'wI'}, including a
> few {'utlh} of the KLI, who are not active on the mailing list but
> occasionally get together (in person) to speak Klingon with each
> other.  They will undoubtedly have coined words that we won't
> understand.  I'm sure the KAG, Khemorex Klinzhai, and other Klingon
> fan clubs have developed their own Klingon pidgins (and indeed
> regional chapters may have their own, depending on geography, e.g.,
> Klingon-English vs. Klingon-German pidgins).  And if you're a purist
> {ta' Hol}-only speaker, you can just ignore the *{toQnaw Hol} speakers
> if you're willing to pay the price of not participating in contexts
> where "Monday" and "Sunday" come up a lot.
>
> I'm not sure if Glen Proechel or the ILS
> (http://www.kli.org/wiki/index.php?Glen%20Proechel) are still active,
> but I've heard they spoke a dialect which is, in a way, the reverse of
> *{toQnaw Hol}, e.g., they would borrow Klingon words and concepts to
> name Terran things, like using {'Iwchab} when they mean "bread" or
> {targh} for "dog".  I've read some of their stuff and they sound (IMO)
> like Terran tourists visiting Qo'noS, e.g., they use {-Daq} for "in"
> and {-vo'} for "from" in a much broader sense than the (usually)
> physical locative markers which these suffixes are in {ta' Hol}, and
> bend Klingon grammar in other ways which make it obvious they're
> native English speakers (mind you, most of us do to some extent on
> occasion).  But if there's a group of people who want to use Klingon
> in this way with each other, as long as they're not claiming that
> theirs is the only true way to speak Klingon, why not?
>
> André Müller:
> > or simple something like "could be mistaken as 1st [of March]" for
>
> At least based on the canon example posted, {jaj wa'} would be
> interpreted as "(week)day one (= Sunday)" while {jaj wa'DIch} would
> mean "1st (first day of the month)".
>
> André Müller:
> > And if I had
> > a list with a note like "used in 'Hamlet'" or "suggested by De'vID
> jonpIn"
> > I'd rather pick one of those, if I agree with its logic, than making up
> my
> > own words.
>
> Hey, whoa, I never suggested anybody should use anything I coined to
> mean anything.  :-)  I'm rather amused to see that I'm credited with
> coining a term for "computer virus" (I don't recall doing this, but I
> suppose I must have.)
>
> Sometimes I'll think of a way to say something on {jaj wa'} (Sunday),
> but by the time {jaj wa'} (Monday) rolls around I've changed my mind.
> ;-)
>
> André Müller:
> > These things are all discussable and wouldn't seem like elitism or per
> se. I
> > see the danger that such a list might become a "This is how you say it."
> > list, but not necessarily so. That list would have not one single, but
> > several possible translations for the English lemmata, annotations that
> lets
> > the reader see the "dangers" and the disclaimer could be formulated
> wisely.
> > I'm sure someone has suggested these things before, but I think the
> > usefulness would outweigh the dangers and "elitism" by far, because it
> would
> > be obvious to every reader that these are mere suggestions which you are
> > free to follow, ignore, annotate or enlarge.
>
> I don't think the compilation of such vocabulary lists is elitist at
> all.  Indeed, I view it as the opposite.  At the qepHom, I met a large
> number of people who are Klingon cosplayers/roleplayers who want to
> learn some Klingon to make their alter-egos more authentic, but who
> are (probably) never going to spend enough time or effort to truly
> learn to use the language at a skill level that some of the more
> linguistically-oriented people on this mailing list have reached.  And
> that's fine.  And in fact, when it comes to certain things like
> "house, ship, title, and rank", they have a much richer and more
> developed vocabulary than is available to purist Klingon speakers,
> created not only from Okrandian canon and official Trek canon (Memory
> Alpha stuff), but with a mix of Fordian, DeCandidovan, etc.,
> vocabulary (Memory Beta stuff), along with stuff they've had to invent
> for their own logistics reasons.  On the KLI mailing list, it's easy
> to forget that we people who want to converse about anything and
> everything in {ta' Hol} are outnumbered, hundreds of times over, by
> people who just want to say things like "My name is K'So'n'so,
> daughter of K'Such'n'Such of the House K'Blooey, and I serve as
> security officer on the IKS K'Blah.  My crew meets on the second
> Sunday of every Terran month, would you like to join us?"  Compiling a
> list of non-canon but in-use vocabulary for commonly needed Terran
> terms is not elitist but a great way to get more people to actually
> use Klingon, outside of us "linguistic" Klingons.
>
> --
> De'vID
>
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