[tlhIngan Hol] Verbs of measure

Mon Apr 1 17:35:50 PDT 2019

Well, you kinda do need to know some grammar to get anything intelligible
out of boQwI', but I see your point. Presumably, being in the process of
actively learning the language while doing the aforementioned boQwI'-using
would make a difference...

Unfortunately, it's not at all clear to me at what point between being able
to say "My name is..." and "one two three four five", and rambling on like
it's your native language, does one become a "speaker" of any language; I
have had long conversations in Spanish, and still hesitate to say that I
speak it, because there's sooooo much I still don't understand. :-(

And yeah, if the fact that I'm learning Klingon comes up in discussion, on
a forum or whatever, people do assume I'm a Trekkie, which is sometimes
awkward. Not that I have anything against Trekkies, or am ashamed of the
association, it's just that then I get messages from people wanting to chat
about ST (which is perfectly natural and understandable), and then I have
to either pretend I know what they're talking about and try to say
something relevant, admit I haven't seen ST, or try to fake it and fail,
and be exposed as a fraud... all of which are rather awkward. Apparently
TOS used to be free to watch on YouTube, but it doesn't look like anybody's
showing it for free anymore, otherwise I'd probably watch that at least...

Clearly, I need to make friends with somebody who has all the Star Trek
episodes on DVD, and thinks letting me come over and watch them is a
wonderful idea. :-P

I do understand the "odd source of self-esteem" thing... I may fail, or
succeed mediocrely (totally a word!), at many things, but I don't know
anybody else who's on the Pi World Ranking List (and not at the bottom
either... though the figure listed there is wayyy outdated, less than half
of what I have memorized now). :-D

-QISta'

On Mon, Apr 1, 2019 at 1:13 PM Will Martin <willmartin2 at mac.com> wrote:

> I think it would be a stretch to say that those who read and compose
> messages by typing or copying words and sentences into boQwI’ speak
> Klingon. I mean, yes, many who speak Klingon do enjoy the assistance of
> boQwI’, but this message seemed to suggest limiting the group under
> consideration to those who wholly rely on it, without memorizing any
> vocabulary or learning any grammar.
>
> I’ve always been impressed by how much work most people on this list
> actually put into the skill levels they’ve achieved here, either by
> impressive natural talent or by dogged determination and years of practice.
>
> Speaking for myself, the skill I inexplicably honed at using this language
> has been an odd source of self-esteem to carry me through times when the
> rest of my life didn’t bother to offer many boosts in that area. Even if
> I’m picked last for the neighborhood volleyball team, at least I knew I was
> one of the very few people in the world who could speak Klingon. I might
> lose a girlfriend or a job or whatever, but, darn it all, I am a Friend of
> Maltz, and several words exist in the Klingon vocabulary because I asked
> for them.
>
> I may suck at a long list of things I’ve tried to do before, but hey, I
> came up with the idea of expressing the question “Which weapon do you
> want?” as the command, “Choose your weapon!” because we don’t have a
> question word for “which” in this language, and we don’t need one, either.
> So THERE!
>
> I may not have enough vocabulary at my fingertips to conversationally keep
> up with a lot of the people on this list, even after decades of
> participating in this list, but man, if you just give me a few minutes and
> boQwI’, I can craft some really beautiful Klingon sentences, and I know the
> grammar well, even among the best here. Not perfect, mind you, but pretty
> darned good.
>
> If boQwI’ was all anybody needed to speak Klingon, then it would not be
> such an effective source of nerd pride.
>
> The Few, the Proud, the Guys (think gender-neutral version of that term)
> With Entirely Too Much Time Without Something More Important To Do: Klingon
> Speakers.
>
> I’ve been one since qep’a’ wa’DIch.
>
> Then I got married and stopped going to qep’a’mey… [sigh]
>
> But hey, I’m still here, after all these years.
>
> Last Friday, I had a simple first moment. I realized that it had been a
> while since I ate, and I thought, “I’m hungry,” in English while I said,
> {jIghung} and gestured the same in ASL, all with one smooth mental exercise
> of expression. It’s not an impressive feat, but it was truly unplanned,
> simultaneous, and innocently accidental in three languages.
>
> And it felt really weird...
>
> charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan
>
> rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.
>
>
>
>
> On Mar 31, 2019, at 12:21 PM, SuStel <sustel at trimboli.name> wrote:
>
> “They” cannot conceive of non-Trekkies who speak Klingon, so anyone who
> does must be a Trekkie, and that’s where they’ll put you.
>
> --
> SuStel
> http://trimboli.name
>
> *From: *Will Martin <willmartin2 at mac.com>
> *Sent: *Sunday, March 31, 2019 10:36 AM
> *To: *tlhingan-hol at kli.org
> *Subject: *Re: [tlhIngan Hol] Verbs of measure
>
> They don’t.
>
> Sent from my iPhone.
> charghwI’
>
> > On Mar 30, 2019, at 8:42 PM, SuStel <sustel at trimboli.name> wrote:
> >
> >> On 3/30/2019 8:04 PM, Christa Hansberry wrote:
> >> Where do non-Trekkies who hang out on the Klingon mailing list and read
> and compose messages by typing or copying words and sentences into boQwI'
> fit in? :-P
> >
> > "Trekkies who speak Klingon."
> >
> > --
> > SuStel
> > http://trimboli.name
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > tlhIngan-Hol at lists.kli.org
> > http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org
>
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