[tlhIngan Hol] Marc Okrand talking about DSC (spoilerfree)

Wed Sep 27 16:08:16 PDT 2017

> What you do is count up exceptional circumstances. If a given piece of canon (1) is a toast,

> which uses special grammar, and (2) violates a clear rule, that's two reasons to be uncertain

> about the correctness of that canon. The more reasons to doubt the grammar of an utterance,

> the less certain you can be of the explanation of that sentence.

I agree with this, although I do think canonical counter-examples are still relevant to the discussion.

I also don't don't really think that reason (1) holds up, considering {wo' DevtaHjaj ghawran} is explicitly stated not to be a toast, in contrast with {wo' ghawran DevtaHjaj}.

It's also worth noting that paq'batlh contains two similar sentences (one of which is repeated three times). I'm generally very suspicious towards paq'batlh, in part because it is meant to be an old and poetic text, but mostly because we know it contains a lot of oddities.

The sentences are listed here:

http://www.klingonwiki.net/En/PaqbatlhNewRules#A_2._Verb_45suffix_7_43_jaj

> But we're not talking about Okrandian canon here; we're talking about stuff Qov wrote.

It seems to me the discussion is about the sentence {tlhIngan maH. taHjaj.} and how many have interpreted it as *tlhIngan maHtaHjaj.*. In the course of this discussion, the grammaticality of *maHtaHjaj* came up.

Also, considering Qov's command of the language, whether or not a sentence is grammatical can be seen as a hint as to whether or not she would have written it (although I think the other evidence we have is quite sufficient on its own).

A further piece of evidence that I don't believe has been mentioned here is that Kenneth Mitchell (Kol) spelled it that way in a tweet, so that's another one of Qov's disciples.

https://twitter.com/MrKenMitchell/status/858031343862767617

> But if you always do that, they're not really mu'mey ru'. You're taking the exceptions to the

> language and applying them generally, while telling yourself that you're not really doing that.

I don't really think that's true, unless it catches on in a big way and starts being considered "correct" to some extent, or was treated as an ordinary expression. It seems to match the definition of {mu'mey ru'}:

"Sometimes words or phrases are coined for a specific occasion, intentionally violating grammatical rules in order to have an impact. Usually these are never heard again, though some gain currency and might as well be classified as slang. Klingon grammarians call such forms {mu'mey ru'} ("temporary words")."

I'll confess that when I first used this construction, I didn't realize that it was ungrammatical, so that was just a {Qaghna'}. Now I know, however, and intend to go on using it :)

________________________________
From: tlhIngan-Hol <tlhingan-hol-bounces at lists.kli.org> on behalf of SuStel <sustel at trimboli.name>
Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2017 17:10
To: tlhingan-hol at lists.kli.org
Subject: Re: [tlhIngan Hol] Marc Okrand talking about DSC (spoilerfree)

On 9/27/2017 9:25 AM, Felix Malmenbeck wrote:

It's worth noting that so do «wo' DevtaHjaj ghawran» and «wo' ghawran
DevtaHjaj», which are used in KGT to illustrate toast grammar.

As you say, these are exceptions used in toasts, so that doesn't count.

I don't believe the first example is meant to be an exception; according to KGT:
"If uttered as a wish, hope, or aspiration - but not as a toast - the normal word order applies: {wo' DevtaHjaj ghawran} ("May Gowron continue to lead the empire")."

It might still be an error, though.

What you do is count up exceptional circumstances. If a given piece of canon (1) is a toast, which uses special grammar, and (2) violates a clear rule, that's two reasons to be uncertain about the correctness of that canon. The more reasons to doubt the grammar of an utterance, the less certain you can be of the explanation of that sentence.

But we're not talking about Okrandian canon here; we're talking about stuff Qov wrote. Whether it's filmed or not, it has no more authority than Worf belching out ka'blah'blah'cha, until Okrand says Maltz has an opinion on it. Naturally, Okrand would look at anything Qov wrote and say, "Oh, sure, that's because..." and give us an explanation. But until he does that, it's not canonical Klingon.

Personally, I like to use phrases such as {X-ta'jaj X-taHbogh Hoch.} to wish people success. I'm fine with those being {mu'mey ru'}, though.

But if you always do that, they're not really mu'mey ru'. You're taking the exceptions to the language and applying them generally, while telling yourself that you're not really doing that.

It would be kind of like constantly telling people, May you are happy or May you are successful. People would get you the first time they heard it, and figured you just flubbed the sentence in the moment, but if you kept saying that, they'd start to look at you funny. Someone would ask, "Why do you say are instead of be?" Now, violating the Klingon rule gives you a more versatile sentence than violating my English examples, and that's why you'd do it, but the effect on the listener would be similar.

--
SuStel
http://trimboli.name
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