[Tlhingan-hol] Things missing

[Rohan Fenwick]

ghItlhpu' qunnoQ, jatlh:
> i believe 3 things are missing,which if existed they would be
> of great help to Klingon as a language.

Why not focus on what there *is* in Klingon, rather than what there isn't? It's best to work with the language, send emails to the list, reach out and communicate with members of the community individually, Skype with Klingonists at all levels (my Skype handle is theriddermark, if you should want to add me)... the list of possibilities is huge. If you get the chance to come to next year's qep'a', or to the Saarbrücken qepHom, you'll see Klingon in full flight and realise that even without these things you make note of, Klingon still works as a language. Yes, there are grammatical and lexical gaps with Klingon and logistical issues for the Klingon community, but as you spend more time here, you'll learn more about what these gaps and issues are, how you can overcome them with the tools we've already got, how other speakers have overcome the same hurdles you have (this is hugely important), and also get some idea of what the Klingon community *is* doing, what we're working on with respect to the language, and so forth.

It's true that we still only have five major works published, and that is a fair sort of hurdle as none of those is a teaching textbook. But the five texts cover a good range of difficulty, and all five are bilingual (i.e. the English is on the opposing page), so they're good self-teaching aids if you can get hold of them. Also, there are several other major works in the pipeline, both prose and poetry, and many more scattered across the Internet. The old articles from Qo'noS QonoS (The Kronos Chronicle, a Klingon-only newsletter that was done for a few years) can be found here:

http://www.kli.org/QQ/

(poD vay')

taH:
> 3. There should be an established board/academy/institution
> which should have the authority to create canon (vocabulary
> & grammar).

This is really problematic, unfortunately. Who gets to decide what's necessary in terms of vocabulary and grammar? Who decides who gets to decide in the first place? What methods do we use to decide on the new word or grammar feature? What happens if there are serious divisions of opinion? Such a thing has happened before in the Klingon community, and we're not so big that we can afford a schism like the one that occurred between Esperanto on the one hand, and Ido and the numerous neo-Esperantos on the other. Ultimately, the KLI has chosen to avoid those kinds of arguments by agreeing to work under a sort of benevolent dictatorship, having Marc Okrand as our sole provider of new canon. Luckily for us, Marc's been very benevolent, and for now he's still going strong (touch wood).

QeS 'utlh

 		 	   		  
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