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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 1/9/2020 3:41 PM, Will Martin wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:1103899D-A7CC-4670-A7C3-E2A6CC0C3778@mac.com">
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<div class="">Your argument is rational and well stated. I believe
that I understand your perspective fairly well.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">The main thing your argument misses is that we ARE
playing a game here, and while you object to me saying, “The
game suggests that you probably shouldn't say X,” you are,
yourself, saying, “You can't say anything about the cultural
part of the game because the cultural rules of the game might
change at any time, depending on the whim of any Star Trek
Universe author, script writer, or Okrand."</div>
</blockquote>
<p>No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that inside the game,
you have to play the part of a non-Klingon learning Klingon
without any Klingons around. You have to pretend that Klingons are
real. And if Klingons were real, you couldn't go around telling
people how they use their own language when you haven't actually
asked one.</p>
<p>And if you don't play that game, if you assume the role of
arbiter of Klingon language according to observed Klingon
stereotypes, what validity does that have? Why should you be able
to dictate what Klingons would or wouldn't do? Who are you to tell
the world what you're allowed to say in Klingon?</p>
<p>The game is that we're all students of a language spoken by a
native population which we have extremely limited access to. We're
trying to learn how those native speakers use their language. We
can't declare how their culture affects their language, because we
can't ask them how their culture affects their language, except
when Okrand relays that information.<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:1103899D-A7CC-4670-A7C3-E2A6CC0C3778@mac.com">
<div class="">The vocabulary changes with regularity, modified by
those same authors, script writers, and Okrand. The grammar gets
changed from time to time, as with the deeper level of
explanations revealed about {-choH} years after TKD came out.
The Appendix changed the grammar after the original TKD came
out. Why can’t we use what we know about the culture just like
we use what we know about the vocabulary and grammar?</div>
</blockquote>
<p>We update our understanding of the vocabulary by studying the
examples and information given to us by Okrand. We can update our
understanding of the way Klingon culture affects their language
the same way: by studying the examples and information given to us
by Okrand. What we can't do is invent ways in which Klingon
culture affects their language, because that violates the game.</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:1103899D-A7CC-4670-A7C3-E2A6CC0C3778@mac.com">
<div class="">You are restricting my free speech as much as you
appear to be trying to stop me from restricting someone else’s,
even though I’m not really trying to restrict it. I’m just
enjoying the part of the game we play that Klingons are real and
they have both language and culture, because if they did, then
you wouldn’t REALLY understand the finer points of the language
without understanding the culture.</div>
</blockquote>
<p>But you're taking a step too far. You're not just saying "We know
this about Klingon culture"; you're saying "We know this about
Klingon culture, and that means a Klingon would say this and not
this in the Klingon language." But where does this information
about what a Klingon would or would not say come from? From you,
not from Okrand, not from Star Trek.<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:1103899D-A7CC-4670-A7C3-E2A6CC0C3778@mac.com">
<div class="">In other words, you are saying that we can’t play
the culture part of the game.</div>
</blockquote>
<p>I'm saying that the only way you can use the culture part of the
game to control the language part of the game is when we've been
told how the culture part controls the language part.</p>
<p>Go ahead and talk about how Klingon has no <i>hello</i> or <i>thank
you.</i> Go ahead and talk about how Klingons prefer to be
forceful. Go ahead and talk about how Klingons prefer accuracy
over approximation. These are all things we know to be true. But
don't then tell me that one of my sentences is inappropriate
because it is "vague, wittering, and indecisive." Don't tell me
that I shouldn't even bother to try to translate a sentence
because a Klingon would never respond in such a way. Don't tell me
that I can't say anything approximately. These are not facts about
the Klingon language.<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:1103899D-A7CC-4670-A7C3-E2A6CC0C3778@mac.com">
<div class="">Meanwhile, nothing in the rules of the list suggest
that, in fact, we can’t play the culture part of the game, so
long as it relates to the language part of the game. You might
be the one person who persistently insists on this, and if that
is true, I wonder why your vote carries so much more weight than
anybody else’s.</div>
</blockquote>
<p>Since you're misunderstanding what I'm saying, your perception of
my "vote" is inaccurate. I'm playing the game by saying that we
don't know the exact cultural effects on Klingon, so we shouldn't
constrain people according to one person's evaluation of that
culture. You, on the other hand, tell people why what they want to
say is wrong, because of your estimation of what a Klingon would
do. My vote doesn't count more; I just stay within the boundaries
of the game.<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:1103899D-A7CC-4670-A7C3-E2A6CC0C3778@mac.com">Okrand
didn’t create this language without reference to the culture of
its fictitious speakers. Why do we have to bleach out all
references to the culture? Why do the linguists win? Why do the
Trekkers and I lose?</blockquote>
<p>What makes you think that linguists don't want culture in their
language studies? That's ludicrous.</p>
<p>A linguist studying a language will not take the language on the
one hand, and the culture on the other hand, and conclude that the
culture causes the speakers of that language to say X or Y. A
linguist will ask those speakers whether or how they say X or Y,
and whether the culture plays a role in that.<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:1103899D-A7CC-4670-A7C3-E2A6CC0C3778@mac.com">We do have
to play the game to be here. In the game, Klingon is a real
language, and it’s spoken by a somewhat brutish warrior race with
a passion for honor and testosterone. Here, we are not Merry Men.</blockquote>
<p>Here, we are not Klingons. The game is not that we pretend to be
Klingons. The game is that we are studying the language of the
Klingons. The game is that Okrand is in contact with a Klingon and
transmits that Klingon's linguistic — and cultural — information
on to us.</p>
<p>Now, if you want to pretend to be a Klingon, that's fine... but
your behavior is not canonical Klingon. You can choose to say what
you like for whatever reason you like. But when someone asks "How
do you say this in Klingon?" they're not asking you to pretend to
be a Klingon at them.<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:1103899D-A7CC-4670-A7C3-E2A6CC0C3778@mac.com">
<div class="">And this isn’t Esperanto: A language without a
people or a culture. It’s not COBOL. It’s not Morse Code.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">It is a language spoken by persons who have a
culture.</div>
</blockquote>
<p>It is a language spoken by fictional persons who have a fictional
culture. And to engage with it, we have adopted the premise that
Okrand is in contact with a single Klingon who transmits his
linguistic information to us. All we know comes to us through
Okrand.<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:1103899D-A7CC-4670-A7C3-E2A6CC0C3778@mac.com">
<div class="">You could, as a fictional linguist, seriously study
that fictional language as if it belonged to those fictional
people in that fictional culture. As a real linguist, you could
play the same game as the rest of us and let us play with the
culture.</div>
</blockquote>
<p>We do not play fictional linguists.<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:1103899D-A7CC-4670-A7C3-E2A6CC0C3778@mac.com">
<div class="">Or, you can insist that this list is really just for
linguists, and the only reason this list exists is to study
Klingon as a language that doesn’t have any real people speaking
it. Klingons are fiction. Klingon culture is fiction. The
Klingon language is non-fiction.</div>
</blockquote>
<p>Real Klingon language has no real native culture. Therefore it is
impossible to make declarations about what you're allowed to say
in it based on cultural impacts.<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:1103899D-A7CC-4670-A7C3-E2A6CC0C3778@mac.com">
<div class="">Why… so… seeeeeeeeerious?</div>
</blockquote>
<p>You're the one who posts five-page diatribes. I'm just insisting
you stick to the game. If we don't have the premise of Okrand
talking to Maltz as our only source of information, then we have
chaos. You can make up your own Klingon culture. I can make up my
own words. Klingon consists only of TKD, TKW, and KGT, because
those are the only actual books Okrand has published on the
subject, and everything on the KLI's new words list is unofficial
and wrong. Klingon is just a Star Trek novelty book, and it
doesn't matter if I think <b>nug neh</b> means <i>hello,</i> and
I'm damn well going to sell it on my tote bags, and why are these
guys in T-shirts pestering me about it?<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:1103899D-A7CC-4670-A7C3-E2A6CC0C3778@mac.com">
<div class="">I know which version I prefer. Am I really so alone
here? Is it true that everyone who isn’t a real linguist or a
linguist wannabe has dried up and blown away? Am I the last one
left with a simultaneous interest in fantasy and grammar?</div>
</blockquote>
<p>Email is for old people. The serious Klingon student is on
Facebook. Didn't you know?<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:1103899D-A7CC-4670-A7C3-E2A6CC0C3778@mac.com">I mean, if
it is so important that the language is non-fiction, but the
culture is fiction, why use a Klingon name?</blockquote>
<p>The language is real. It was developed by a linguist named Marc
Okrand to give characters in a movie their own language, and he
published a novelty book about it that pretends to be written in
the universe of that movie, by people who don't natively speak the
language it describes. We enter this universe by accepting the
book's premise and learning along with its fictional target
audience. In that universe, we are not Klingons. We study their
language and culture, but we do not have first-hand information.
Once we leave that universe, we have learned the real-life
language of Klingon, but we cannot modify or dictate the rules of
that language outside of the universe it comes from. If we want to
pretend to be Klingons, we do so not in the universe in which we
learned Klingon, where we are non-Klingon students, but in a
universe in which we are Klingons who know everything about the
language. But that universe does not affect the other. I don't
visit your I'm-a-Klingon universe, so I don't play by your rules.
But you DO visit the Okrand-speaks-to-Maltz universe along with
me, and that is where we MUST accept that Klingon is defined for
us. This list supports the Okrand-speaks-to-Maltz universe, not
the charghwI'-is-a-Klingon universe.</p>
<p>As for my name, that's mostly a handle I use on the Internet. I
also go by <i>Stormcrow</i> on many forums. It provides a unique
identity that leans into the theme of the thing and provides my
audience with a cue: when I use my Klingon name, it means I'm
talking in or about Klingon.<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
SuStel
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://trimboli.name">http://trimboli.name</a></pre>
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