Am 22.11.2019 um 14:38 schrieb Will Martin:
I wonder how Klingon vocabulary stacks up against other artificial languages, especially those created and maintained by a single person.
I'm pretty sure that Klingon stil is "the fastest growing language in the Galaxy", and the creator of that phrase never knew how right he would ever be with that.
{ghoj} and {ghojmoH} only count as one word because the second version is only a suffixed version of the first.
Add {ghojmoHwI'} to that list. :-) I once made a straight syllable count which reduzed it to less than 3,000 words, and eliminating all the star trek related vocabulary we even get closer to 2000. But on the other hand, if you respect that nearly any verb can get a -moH or a -wI', and nearly any noun can be combined with others, the true number of really available words, being canon or not, grows up to certainly more than twice 4,000 words or even more. That's the reason why Klingon can be used to translate many daily situations even though we don't have a single word for each thing. It was after TNK that I realized that Klingon seems to be intentionally constructed not having a word for each thing; many ideas are simply expressed using multiple words. As a summary, saying that Klingon has 4,000 words sounds less than what it really is usable for. -- Lieven L. Litaer aka the "Klingon Teacher from Germany" http://www.klingonisch.de http://www.klingonwiki.net/En/NumberOfWords