If what you say is indeed the case (and I don't doubt you that this is correct), then the onus falls upon the KLI to spearhead and support an effort to ensure a future for the Klingon language. They need to form a committee, or some other, perhaps more formal structure to do this. It may not or maybe should not be done today, but they need to start thinking through what will eventually need to be done. Something tells me that many people here are also involved in some way with the KLI. Everything discussed so far here also applies to any effort put forth by the KLI. Any 'democratic' effort to do this without some formality and a few rules/principles/standards, is doomed to failure. Such a framework will help in the future should a group or committee, involved with the KLI or not, cease doing 'the good work', and another groupor committee in the future form to take up the work of the failed first committee. As for legal defense, perhaps this group and the KLI need to look at work that the Language Creation Society has done in terms of copyrights on constructed languages. They contributed a carefully research amicus brief to the court in the Paramount vs Axanar case. I believe there is a version of the brief available for public consumption. In the end, I suspect that common sense would inform Paramount that the work on Klingon being done outside the movie set is valuable to them, and not something that could be done in a quality way within their organization. Moviegoers, especially in the Science Fiction/Fantasy genres are no longer happy with goobliegook. They want languages that really function as languages, and of these, I think Klingon is foremost by a long shot. That alone should help ensure a future for an arguably successful conlang. A publishible Klingon NT? I would be interested in learning more. It might even make me get serious about learning Klingon and learning it well. Tim Stoffel -- -----Original Message----- From: Will Martin <willmartin2@mac.com> Reply-to: tlhingan-hol@kli.org To: tlhingan-hol@kli.org, Iikka Hauhio <fergusq@protonmail.com> Subject: Re: [tlhIngan Hol] hard truths about the future Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2021 15:05:13 -0500 Someone should say this: Paramount doesn’t really own the Klingon language because languages are not really intellectual property, but I’m not sure that Paramount’s lawyers care whether that’s true or not. They are quite capably of “protecting their intellectual property” at a cost that would destroy us even if they were unsuccessful. They can easily abuse “discovery” requirements forcing us to provide absurd quantities of evidence we lack the resources to collect, causing us to forfeit any legal case they choose to provide simply because we can’t afford to be in the same courtroom they are in. The KLI has secured a license from Paramount to use the Klingon language. That’s nothing to sneeze at. That’s why Paramount’s publisher has published all the Klingon stuff, and that’s why a certain book on Klingon martial arts that some people have illegal copies of, was printed, but not legally published because of a court case that required all copies be destroyed. That’s why the first “completed” translation of the New Testament is not on bookshelves next to The Klingon Hamlet. So, brushing off the KLI as if they were an annoyance somehow standing in the way of progress of The Way Things Should Be is a little short- sighted. It’s not like membership is exclusive. If you want in, you pretty much are in. Dues aren’t particularly egregious. And years of experience with the language is not a spectacularly bad thing. The KLI has made honest effort to keep the language consistent and foster its progress in a reasonably organized way. They have proven their willingness and ability to handle this responsibility, and you seem to want them to be booted out of the way, by default, from a proposed committee of people who will… start doing what Okrand and the KLI have been doing for decades?
From scratch?
Because… being enthusiastic is more valuable than decades of experience… among people who are… enthusiastic? I’m not even a member anymore, and I don’t want to be on such a committee, but I have to speak up for the KLI. You don’t scrap the KLI and start over from scratch. You just don’t. You can grow the KLI toward some new direction, just as every group evolves, but you don’t self-righteously piss on the KLI. You just don’t. Stop fantasizing that as Step One of some new process where The People get to run the language. The People can join the KLI. That’s Step One.