loghaD:
As a matter of taste, I tend to avoid using commas unless necessary for clarity, because they have a very "English:y" feel to them
In-game thinking dictates that we believe, that the way klingon is to be written is unknown.. And this is reasonable, since it'd be rather ridiculous to admit that in its' homeworld, an alien language is normally written in the characters of a terran one. It'd be equivalent to saying that ancient egyptian is to be written in old norse runes.. However, the problem remains that we *need* to punctuate, since a passage lacking adequate punctuation resembles a road lacking surface markings; One *could* drive in such a road, but depending on the road, the lack of surface markings could be anywhere between insignificant to fatal. Of course, noone died because he read an inadequately punctuated text, but you get my point.. And there's another angle to this matter.. Would you take seriously a country which uses different surface markings on each one of its' highways, depending on how the contractor who created them, happened to be *feeling* the day each road was being constructed ? The same goes for klingon texts.. A klingon text has to follow consistent punctuation rules throughout. If it doesn't, then one thing it shows for sure, is that the author isn't serious about his work. Of course now, someone will ask, "and what do these punctuation rules need to be ?" I don't know. This is something for each one to decide. But personally, I'd take into *very* serious consideration fse punctuation rules (i.e the ones which can apply in klingon), since these rules have been developed over decades if not centuries, and I wouldn't expect anyone of us to be able to think of anything better. But regardless how someone will decide, the need remains that in order to be taken seriously, he needs to be consistent in his punctuation throughout. It would be ridiculous to read a text, where some adverbs are followed by a comma, and some aren't. Or to see a text where some dependent clauses at the beginning of the sentence are followed by a comma and some aren't. Every fse writing style guide I've read, says with regards to punctuation which even in fse there's no set rule, "pick a style and stick with it", and I believe one should act similarly in klingon. At least it shows to the reader, that the author had the decency to sit his ass on a chair, think the matter of punctuation seriously, and reach to some decisions. And this would be preferable than throwing commas, semicolons, parentheses, etc, in random. ~ mayqel qunen'oS