[Tlhingan-hol] Things missing

Thu Oct 29 09:00:04 PDT 2015

Comments in line below.

pItlh
lojmIt tI'wI'nuv

> On Oct 29, 2015, at 10:17 AM, qunnoQ HoD <mihkoun at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> ..."why do you ask for more canon ?"
> 
> It is not that i'm asking for more canon. It is that i want/i demand/accept nothing less than Klingon to be perfect. Yes,now i'm a beginner. But the time will come,when i will be able to write in Klingon ; when this language will have been made a part of myself,the same way that my heart is a part of my body. It will be part of my education/skills/abilities and i expect nothing less than for it to be complete. To be as whole as possible. To be far more superior than any other constructed language. I expect and demand "borg perfection",the same way that Klingon will have expected from me time/persistence/patience in order for it to become a part of me.

Ask not what the Klingon language can do for you, but ask what you can do for the Klingon language.

You make a big deal out of the language becoming part of you. Note that it is not the language’s duty to be perfect for you. It is your duty to become perfect with the use of the language. This requires some work-arounds. That is a place where your creativity and cleverness can shine.

This is a community. It already serves you with a Web site, a mailing list, an updated lexicon, tutorials and other resources, all provided by volunteers. It’s a little disrespectful of all that support to express excessive demands that you apparently believe are owed to you because you are so gracious as to invest your valuable time and skill toward learning it.

Stand in line.

There are a LOT of talented people who have already invested their time and skills in this language. You have the opportunity to become one of them. Don’t disrespect that opportunity by demanding that all politics within the group change to accommodate your new idea of how things ought to be done. It’s not all that new or original of an idea, and it’s never worked here before. Check out the archives. There’s a long history of certain individuals coming into the group with this kind of demand.

> "why do you ask for more canon ? after all you can always find "ways around" any deficiencies it may have"
> 
> ..true, but ask yourselves. If you had a torn posterior cruciate ligament in your knee,would you be ok with it ? You would be in pain from time to time,but surely you could find a "way around" it too. You could take meds,use a brace,do physical therapy etc,etc. Why would you prefer your knee to be "perfect" ? wouldn't all those "ways around" suffice ?

As you age, you learn that certain compromises are simply necessary.

> You would want your knee to be "perfect" not only because you wouldn't want to feel pain or activity restrictions. You would want your knee to be perfect because it is a part of your body and you want/demand/accept nothing else,than for it to be perfect.

You’d probably expect to spend some money to get your knee fixed. Are you prepared to spend money to get the Klingon language fixed? Or are you just expecting a bunch of volunteers to do this for you?

> so,because i love Klingon and because it is becoming/will eventually become one of the languages i speak,because it is becoming a part of myself i want/demand/accept nothing else than for it to be perfect. Its as simple as that.

Thou dost protest too much.

Maybe you’d rather work with some easier language. I’ve heard that Malasian is fairly simple. Bahasa manis, manis.

> Second question..
> 
> who is to decide what should be considered valid ? who should create canon ?

Okrand.

...
> If Klingon has inherent deficiencies in grammar/vocabulary,then one would be forced to go through all kinds of "linguistic acrobatics" to get the desired meaning through. Wouldn't that inevitably lead to ambiguity in regard to the meaning he's trying to express ? Why shouldn't i think that all these "acrobatics" wouldn't eventually lead to a sentence which's meaning could be interpreted differently depending on the interpretation of the individual listener ?

Your requirements of Klingon are more demanding than most people require of English or any other major, common language. All languages are awkward at handling something that is easy and natural in some other language. I can say things with very specific, clear, unambiguous meaning in Klingon that are awkward to translate into English without introducing vagueness or ambiguity. Does that mean that as an English speaker, I can demand of the world that English be improved to my specifications?

Just a word to the wise:

There are at least three types of beginners here that I’ve witnessed over the past few decades. I’m sure there are more, but these are common types with frequently repeated outcomes:

1. Those who don’t have a lot of natural talent with the language, but compensate for that with persistence and patience. Some of these never become advanced speakers, but they do feel that their lives are enhanced by the activity of trying. Others do manage to become very skilled and earn great respect from the community, as much as any naturally talented person here.

2. Those who are shocking in their nearly effortless leap to really frightening skill levels, like the two authors of the Klingon translation of Hamlet who memorized the entire vocabulary in a few weeks and can speak the language faster than anyone can understand without significant use of The Amazing Slow-Downer or Audacity. Some are bright sparks who do wonderful things and then drift off to other interests, leaving us in the dust. Others, like Qov, come back to us and give freely of themselves to expand our resources with high quality tutorials, original stories and other resources.

3. Those who come into the group like gangsters, determined to be the big boss who tells us what we are doing wrong and how we need to do things from now on. They generally cause disruption, make the mailing list unpleasant enough that a lot of people unsubscribe, and they might last a year before leaving in a huff, never to be heard from again.

Don’t be yet another one of the third group. It’s bad for community. It’s bad for your own personal growth. Show a little more respect for the talent and work of volunteers who have gone before you, and those who are still here after years of participation.

Or go away before things get worse for you.

It’s just my personal advice. You don’t have to follow it. Just remember it when you decide this isn’t worthwhile anymore and you decide to leave us. You were told this would happen.

> 
> qunnoQ HoD
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Thu, Oct 29, 2015 at 3:27 PM, SuStel <sustel at trimboli.name <mailto:sustel at trimboli.name>> wrote:
> On 10/29/2015 2:16 AM, Tim Stoffel wrote:
> Considering what the Klingon language community has accomplished over
> the years, it would be a shame to think that the end of Marc Okrand
> (which I hope is no time soon!) could be the end of the Klingon
> language.
> 
> We need a mechanism to keep the language alive.

The Klingon Dictionary with the addendum came out in 1992. We’re still here a couple decades later. The mechanisms we are already using are apparently working fairly well, and SuStel’s response is perfect:

> Such a mechanism can be dreamed up at such time as Okrand leaves us or decides not to do Klingon anymore. Why try to impose it now? The language won't suddenly evaporate when he's gone.
> 
> -- 
> SuStel
> http://trimboli.name <http://trimboli.name/>
> 

The language probably will die within a few decades after Okrand, when those of us who know it now die without passing it on to our children, but then with the publications out there and the archives wherever they go, some future linguists would probably pick it back up on a lark and it could become wonderful again.

And maybe the military will decide to use it for coded communication...

Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combination.

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