[Tlhingan-hol] lurkers / KLBC (Klingon Language Beginner's Corner)

[d'Armond Speers, Ph.D.]

This not strictly accurate.  At some point in the 1990s I became a
secondary list administrator (second to Seqram), and one of the duties
I was asked to perform (by Lawrence) was selecting the Beginner's
Grammarian.  The outgoing BG would make recommendations to me.  I
would contact the candidates and assess their interest and skill
level, select the best candidate, and then notify the selected BG,
offering them the position.  This would conclude with an official
announcement on the list by me, and the handover would be complete.

There's a discussion of this in the FAQ, including a link to the
original list archives (which still works!) where the discussions
about creating KLBC occurred.  It's an interesting bit of history, if
nothing else.  :)

http://www.speers.nu/Holtej/klingon/faq.htm#2.4

--Holtej

On Mon, May 7, 2012 at 11:04 AM, lojmIt tI'wI' nuv
<lojmitti7wi7nuv at gmail.com> wrote:
> Just to add my sense of history here, the first Grammarian was HoD Qanqor. He wasn't a Beginners' Grammarian. He was THE Grammarian.
>
> He invented the role of BG and appointed the first several of us after negotiating who could best do the task. As his participation on the list waned, BGs started appointing their successors. As a group, we can change traditions as needed.
>
> Being BG is the best way to improve your skills because it forces you to apply them more than casually, both to invent lessons and resources for beginners, and to respond to their inquiries (and deal with their traditional fixation on beginning their first Klingon writings in the form of bad poetry that they insist carries profound meaning). You also get fact-checked by every expert in the language, which will either kill you or make you stronger.
>
> We never got around to replacing Qanqor as general Grammarian, but a small, self-appointed, informal committee has essentially taken on the role with a respectable degree of success. Most members are former BGs who figure that if we haven't earned the right to this role, then who has? What greater credential can one have than a year-long (or longer) test of fire?
>
> Sent from my iPad

-- 
d'Armond Speers, Ph.D.
speersd at georgetown.edu