[Tlhingan-hol] How many grammarians ?

[Elizabeth Lawrence]

I think Marc Okrand is significantly hampered in his ability to speak the
language by our own Klingon-language version of papal infallibility:
because everything he says is canon, and therefore correct, he dares not
make any mistakes, so he just doesn't say anything he hasn't planned in
advance.

It can sometimes be even harder to remember things you've come up with
yourself; in my chorus, some of the members write songs, and those are the
only songs whose lyrics they have trouble remembering.

be''etlh

On Mon, Nov 9, 2015 at 6:10 AM, Rohan Fenwick <qeslagh at hotmail.com> wrote:

> ghItlhpu' lojmIt tI'wI' nuv, jatlh:
> > He was the first human to speak Klingon. He did so before Okrand could
> > speak it.
>
> jang qunnoQ, jatlh:
> > how is this possible ? I always thought Okrand has/had the maximum skill
> in
> > klingon (written and conversational) anyone could ever achieve.. After
> all
> > -by definition- every klingonist out there, from beginner to grammarian,
> is
> > Okrand's student.
>
> Many linguists who study specific languages are like this. It's what makes
> the difference between a linguist of a language, and a speaker of a
> language. A linguist may specialise in a language's structure, know
> everything there is to know about how the verb conjugates, or how many noun
> cases there are, or whether the adpositions go before or after the noun.
> But being able to speak the language in real time is a very different set
> of skills. You need to summon up the words and structures more or less on
> demand as you need them, on an almost subconscious level rather than using
> conscious recall. It takes a lot of practice and a different kind of
> familiarity with the language.
>
> Nonetheless, I've seen Marc interpret occasionally for people on the vow
> at qep'a', and participate in conversations (over ghem at Denny's,
> mostly...) where he's speaking English and others are speaking Klingon. His
> passive skills with the language in real time are still impressive; not
> many are capable of interpreting live Klingon.
>
> QeS 'utlh
>
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