[tlhIngan Hol] Klingon Word of the Day: lojban Hol

André Müller esperantist at gmail.com
Sun Jun 2 12:55:03 PDT 2024


The word before *Hol* does not necessarily need to be the name of a place
or people. It can just be a proper noun. Think of *'epIl naH*, *patat
'oQqar* or (arguably) *po'lo yIvbeH*. They're basically just a fruit named
"apple", a tuber called "potat(o)" and a shirt of the specific "polo" type.
Likewise, I see *lojban Hol* as a language called "Lojban". Klingon just
likes to put Klingon-specific nouns after borrowed words to clarify what
they refer to.

This also has parallels in natural languages, e.g. Chinese 巴利語 (Bālìyǔ)
which just means "a language called Pali", not "the language of the Pali
(place/people)". I wanted to pick the Chinese translations of Lojban and
Esperanto at first, but they literally mean "logic language" and "world
language", respectively. But it works with Volapük: 沃拉普克語 (Wòlāpǔkèyǔ)
doesn't refer to a place or people either, it's just the "Wolapuke"
language.

— André aka Vortarulo

Am So., 2. Juni 2024 um 17:49 Uhr schrieb Will Martin via tlhIngan-Hol <
tlhingan-hol at lists.kli.org>:

> nuqDaq Da lojbanngan? yuQ ‘oH’a’ lojban’e’? wo’ ‘oH’a’ lojban’e’? nugh
> ‘oH’a’ lojban’e’?
>
> Basically, my issue is that while in English, we can say “Lojban is a
> language,” and we’re done; nothing else is implied, in Klingon, by
> referring to {lojban Hol}, we imply that there are other things shared by
> Lojbanians, since it is the language of the Lojbanians, who apparently got
> their name from something other than their shared language.
>
> In other words, if {lojban Hol} is a meaningful phrase, what does {lojban}
> mean?
>
> By convention, Klingon doesn’t give us the means to name a language
> without implying that the language belongs to a planet, an empire, or a
> people. The language is a thing that an identifiable people use to
> communicate.
>
> Ironically, the Klingon language forces itself to remain fictional because
> it identifies itself as the language of a fictional race, and you can’t, in
> Klingon, refer to itself as a language spoken by humans to communicate with
> other humans, without forcing them to refer to the fictional race that owns
> the language.
>
> There are no artificial languages the ST Universe. There aren’t even any
> meaningfully direct references to computer programming languages, beyond
> the extremely oblique “It does not compute,” or Data going on about what he
> is or is not “programmed” to do. For all we know, in the Star Trek
> Universe, they’ve moved on to programming through tools other than
> language-based code. It has crossed the threshold between technology and
> magic.
>
> pItlh
>
> charghwI’ ‘utlh
> (ghaH, ghaH, -Daj)
>
>
>
>
> On Jun 2, 2024, at 10:00 AM, Klingon Word of the Day via tlhIngan-Hol <
> tlhingan-hol at lists.kli.org> wrote:
>
> Klingon Word of the Day for Sunday, June 02, 2024
>
> Klingon word: lojban Hol
> Part of speech: noun
> Definition: Lojban
> Source: qep'a' 30, Toki Pona: The Language of Good
>
>
> This Klingon Word of the Day is brought to you by qurgh (qurgh at kli.org).
>
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