Hello again, I am so used to teaching that Klingon is an action-based language, that I have forgotten, on what this is based. There are many situations expressed with nouns in Terran languages which are expressed using a verb in Klingon. But where was this stated? (I'm not nitpicking, just seriously asking) -- Lieven L. Litaer aka the "Klingon Teacher from Germany" http://www.tlhInganHol.com http://klingon.wiki/En/Verb
On 11/9/2020 8:28 AM, Lieven L. Litaer wrote:
I am so used to teaching that Klingon is an action-based language, that I have forgotten, on what this is based. There are many situations expressed with nouns in Terran languages which are expressed using a verb in Klingon.
But where was this stated?
(I'm not nitpicking, just seriously asking)
I was just thinking about this on my commute to work this morning. This is a thing that is commonly stated by Klingonists, and I think somewhat carelessly. It's usually stated that Klingon is "verb-centric." I don't think it's something that Okrand has published or said. It's true that a lot of Klingon sentences are just one word, a verb, which doesn't usually happen in English. It's also true that some English prepositions can be translated as verbal clauses in Klingon, though a lot of them can also be translated as noun phrases. And it's also true that English adjectives often turn into Klingon verbs. In those ways, Klingon has more reliance on verbs than English does. I don't think this is a useful way to put it, especially since it's often thrown at newbies as if it's an important point that will help them understand Klingon better. There aren't as many situations where English nouns turn into Klingon verbs as I think the people saying this like to believe. To demote the noun to lesser status in Klingon is, I think, a mistake. Nouns can dance around at the fronts of sentences doing all sorts of interesting things: telling us the time, location, target, beneficiary, reason, topic. Every verb is either supporting a noun to modify it (acting adjectivally) or forced to conjugate with a prefix indicating its object and subject (both nouns or noun phrases). There are two verb suffixes that turn verbs into nouns but none that turn nouns into verbs. Verbs are nearly always monosyllabic, and sometimes have to double-up in meanings, but nouns can take any form and be unique. Nouns can modify each other in endless combinations; verbs can only modify each other in the clumsy sentence-as-object construction or by just using short, one-word sentences in rapid succession. I don't tell people that Klingon is verb-centric. I focus more on strategies of translating prepositions, adjectives, and genitives into constructions that exist in Klingon. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
Am 09.11.2020 um 15:17 schrieb SuStel:
I don't tell people that Klingon is verb-centric. I focus more on strategies of translating prepositions, adjectives, and genitives into constructions that exist in Klingon.
That's an interesting point, and I'm curious to see how others argue about this. What I have observed is that many newbies come with phrases based on nouns like "My love for you is strong" and then we suggest them to rephrase it like "I love you very much". And then I recently started to wonder why we do that. Is it really the case that there are more verb-centric expressions or constructions than nouns? Or did we really just make that up many years ago, when we were missing so many words? (I actually noticed that after a detailed word count showed that we have about twice as many nouns than verbs; although 10% of them are names and transliterations.) -- Lieven L. Litaer aka the "Klingon Teacher from Germany" http://www.tlhInganHol.com http://klingon.wiki/En/Verb
On 11/9/2020 9:47 AM, Lieven L. Litaer wrote:
What I have observed is that many newbies come with phrases based on nouns like "My love for you is strong" and then we suggest them to rephrase it like "I love you very much".
Sure, this is a case where we have a verb *muSHa'*/love/ and no corresponding noun, and so naturally one will turn to the verb. And sometimes it's true that we have a verb with no corresponding noun. I don't think this makes Klingon verb-centric; it just means Klingon doesn't noun its verbs and verb its nouns as often as English does. The balance of Klingon is different than that of English.
And then I recently started to wonder why we do that. Is it really the case that there are more verb-centric expressions or constructions than nouns? Or did we really just make that up many years ago, when we were missing so many words?
I think missing words was part of it. I think fear of and confusion about *-ghach* was another. I think the fact that many English nouns get translated into Klingon verbs is significant and should be noted for the student, but I don't think that the entire character of the language should be named based on just that. It's really just an admonition to the student not to translate word for word. Find out how Klingon wants to construct things and expression your idea using those Klingon tools. Sometimes, what is a noun in English is necessarily a verb in Klingon. But don't overstate this. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
I think one of the reasons the “Klingon is verb-centric” slogan came about was – as both Lieven and SuStel have brought up – to shift the focus away from word-for-word literal translations. “Verb-centric not noun-centric” was just convenient shorthand for Beginner’s Grammarians tired of having to explain this in detail again and again. Newbies often go through a “Klinglish” phase where they obsess over creating missing nouns – e.g. *{muSHa’qu’ghachwIj} (!!) – instead of just considering another way of rendering the general idea. Lieven (aka our "Klingon Teacher from Germany"), have you noticed a similar fixation on missing nouns by German-speaking newbies? __ Voragh ____________________________________________________________ From: SuStel Sent: Monday, November 9, 2020 9:02 AM On 11/9/2020 9:47 AM, Lieven L. Litaer wrote: What I have observed is that many newbies come with phrases based on nouns like "My love for you is strong" and then we suggest them to rephrase it like "I love you very much". Sure, this is a case where we have a verb muSHa' love and no corresponding noun, and so naturally one will turn to the verb. And sometimes it's true that we have a verb with no corresponding noun. I don't think this makes Klingon verb-centric; it just means Klingon doesn't noun its verbs and verb its nouns as often as English does. The balance of Klingon is different than that of English. And then I recently started to wonder why we do that. Is it really the case that there are more verb-centric expressions or constructions than nouns? Or did we really just make that up many years ago, when we were missing so many words? I think missing words was part of it. I think fear of and confusion about -ghach was another. I think the fact that many English nouns get translated into Klingon verbs is significant and should be noted for the student, but I don't think that the entire character of the language should be named based on just that. It's really just an admonition to the student not to translate word for word. Find out how Klingon wants to construct things and expression your idea using those Klingon tools. Sometimes, what is a noun in English is necessarily a verb in Klingon. But don't overstate this.
Am 09.11.2020 um 21:13 schrieb Steven Boozer:
Lieven (aka our "Klingon Teacher from Germany"), have you noticed a similar fixation on missing nouns by German-speaking newbies?
Yes, that's what I wrote in my initial message, where I said that many Terran languages have that problem. As a side note, I was not focussing on verbs that can be used as nouns nouns, such as "drink" or "sleep". The obervation was a lot more that people tend to use "real" nouns which describe an action. Here are ome examples that we would be able to translate using verbs: "What is the definition of xyz?" --> "how is xyz defined" "What is your preferation?" --> What do your prefer? "My intention is to..." --> "I intend to..." "This is my final decision." --> I have decided. "The Exploration of space..." --> "to explore space..." "The preparation of the food is complete" --> "I have finished cooking" And so one. I'm sure there are more cases like this, where we would recast this using a verb. And then, suddenly, I just remembered a nice canon example: "My death sentence was commuted" {vImuHlu' net wuqHa'.} (ENT) THERE! noun --> verb (I'll check if I find more canon proof for this.) -- Lieven L. Litaer aka the "Klingon Teacher from Germany" http://www.tlhInganHol.com http://klingon.wiki/En/Noun
I honestly think the hardest thing for new students is that instead of learning a few Klingon words and trying to figure out meaningful things they could say with them, and then build their vocabulary and grammatical complexity to say more and more interesting things, they so often want to start with a specific Terran sentence or poem or song or short story or novel or the Complete Works of Shakespeare and take each sentence as if it were the only way that sentence could possibly be expressed in its original language, and then translate each of those words and rearrange them a little to make it come out Klingon, as if that’s the only Klingon translation that could possibly mean what the original meant. Most beginning Klingon students don’t fundamentally understand the task of translation. Explaining that many noun-focused statements can more readily be expressed with verb-focused translations is just one example of the kind of letting go of the ineffective word-for-word encoding process that many students leap at. It’s an important lesson, but it is one arrow in a quiver. I think it’s good to point to the simple example that there is no way to ask the question, “Which pie do you want?” as a question in Klingon, though you can express the same meaning with the command, “Choose your pie!” There is no sacred, immutable grammatical expression in the first version of the sentence that must be carried forth to the translation, which is the second version. It’s not important that an English question becomes a Klingon question. The important thing is that the meaning is understood. Both the English and the Klingon evoke the same response based on the same information. Both statements involve pies. You are going to get one of them, assuming that you answer the question or respond to the command. Add that the English version is a little more polite, leaving open the possibility that you might not want a pie at all, or maybe you’d like both of them, or maybe you’d like to discuss your feelings about each one as you publicly share your inner thoughts as we all go through the decision together, while the Klingon version is rather more in your face. Here’s your mission. Choose your pie, and don’t waste my time, dammit! Welcome to Klingon culture, as revealed by the Conversational Klingon audio recording. Klingon has {-ghach}. You can obviously translate a lot of these noun-focused expressions into noun-focused Klingon. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. I think THAT’S the biggest foundational step for new Klingon speakers. Grab some words. Learn enough basic grammar to say stuff with them. Imagine another scenario or topic of interest and learn some more words. Learn some more elements of grammar. Rinse, repeat. Start with an idea to translate, instead of starting with specific words arranged in a specific sentence in one language, with the laser-focused intent to turn those same words and grammatical construction into the one and only equivalent Klingon sentence. If you can get students to handle THAT, then they will speak better Klingon sooner, and will likely go farther with the language. charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.
On Nov 9, 2020, at 3:28 PM, Lieven L. Litaer <levinius@gmx.de> wrote:
Am 09.11.2020 um 21:13 schrieb Steven Boozer:
Lieven (aka our "Klingon Teacher from Germany"), have you noticed a similar fixation on missing nouns by German-speaking newbies?
Yes, that's what I wrote in my initial message, where I said that many Terran languages have that problem.
As a side note, I was not focussing on verbs that can be used as nouns nouns, such as "drink" or "sleep". The obervation was a lot more that people tend to use "real" nouns which describe an action. Here are ome examples that we would be able to translate using verbs:
"What is the definition of xyz?" --> "how is xyz defined"
"What is your preferation?" --> What do your prefer?
"My intention is to..." --> "I intend to..."
"This is my final decision." --> I have decided.
"The Exploration of space..." --> "to explore space..."
"The preparation of the food is complete" --> "I have finished cooking"
And so one. I'm sure there are more cases like this, where we would recast this using a verb.
And then, suddenly, I just remembered a nice canon example: "My death sentence was commuted" {vImuHlu' net wuqHa'.} (ENT)
THERE! noun --> verb (I'll check if I find more canon proof for this.)
-- Lieven L. Litaer aka the "Klingon Teacher from Germany" http://www.tlhInganHol.com http://klingon.wiki/En/Noun _______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org
It would be interesting to find out whether newbies whose native language is not Indo European also have this fixation. There have been Japanese learners on the list as well as a couple of Arabic and Hebrew speakers. A complication is that anyone interested in Star Trek and the Klingon language probably knows English fairly well. I wonder what Okrand's experience with non-English speakers has been. TKD has only been translated into German AFAIK, or have there been other languages? -- Voragh ------------------------------Original Message------------------------------ From: Lieven L. Litaer Am 09.11.2020 um 21:13 schrieb Steven Boozer [Voragh] :
Lieven (aka our "Klingon Teacher from Germany"), have you noticed a similar fixation on missing nouns by German-speaking newbies?
Yes, that's what I wrote in my initial message, where I said that many Terran languages have that problem. As a side note, I was not focussing on verbs that can be used as nouns nouns, such as "drink" or "sleep". The obervation was a lot more that people tend to use "real" nouns which describe an action. Here are ome examples that we would be able to translate using verbs: "What is the definition of xyz?" --> "how is xyz defined" "What is your preferation?" --> What do your prefer? "My intention is to..." --> "I intend to..." "This is my final decision." --> I have decided. "The Exploration of space..." --> "to explore space..." "The preparation of the food is complete" --> "I have finished cooking" And so one. I'm sure there are more cases like this, where we would recast this using a verb. And then, suddenly, I just remembered a nice canon example: "My death sentence was commuted" {vImuHlu' net wuqHa'.} (ENT) THERE! noun --> verb (I'll check if I find more canon proof for this.) -- Lieven L. Litaer aka the "Klingon Teacher from Germany"
I have notes that there are also versions in Italian, Portuguese, and Czech, though I haven’t seen them myself. But only English and German have the other (official) books. Russ
On Nov 9, 2020, at 4:25 PM, Steven Boozer <sboozer@uchicago.edu> wrote:
[...]
I wonder what Okrand's experience with non-English speakers has been. TKD has only been translated into German AFAIK, or have there been other languages?
-- Voragh
------------------------------Original Message------------------------------ From: Lieven L. Litaer
Am 09.11.2020 um 21:13 schrieb Steven Boozer [Voragh] : Lieven (aka our "Klingon Teacher from Germany"), have you noticed a similar fixation on missing nouns by German-speaking newbies?
Yes, that's what I wrote in my initial message, where I said that many Terran languages have that problem.
As a side note, I was not focussing on verbs that can be used as nouns nouns, such as "drink" or "sleep". The obervation was a lot more that people tend to use "real" nouns which describe an action. Here are ome examples that we would be able to translate using verbs:
"What is the definition of xyz?" --> "how is xyz defined"
"What is your preferation?" --> What do your prefer?
"My intention is to..." --> "I intend to..."
"This is my final decision." --> I have decided.
"The Exploration of space..." --> "to explore space..."
"The preparation of the food is complete" --> "I have finished cooking"
And so one. I'm sure there are more cases like this, where we would recast this using a verb.
And then, suddenly, I just remembered a nice canon example: "My death sentence was commuted" {vImuHlu' net wuqHa'.} (ENT)
THERE! noun --> verb (I'll check if I find more canon proof for this.)
-- Lieven L. Litaer aka the "Klingon Teacher from Germany" _______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org
I think you are referring to official copies of The Klingon Dictionary. I own a copy of the Italian version and I’ve seen the Portuguese version and held it in my hand. I think I’ve seen the Spanish version as well. Okrand was not involved in the making of any of the translations of TKD to other languages. The German version is notoriously bad, especially in the glosses, which very frequently stray by defining words by what Americans would likely consider to be the least likely, most restrictive stretch of a synonym. I haven’t heard anyone criticize any of the other versions as severely as I’ve heard critiques of the German version. Germans apparently prefer the English version. charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.
On Nov 9, 2020, at 5:34 PM, Russ Perry Jr <russperryjr@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
I have notes that there are also versions in Italian, Portuguese, and Czech, though I haven’t seen them myself. But only English and German have the other (official) books.
Russ
On Nov 9, 2020, at 4:25 PM, Steven Boozer <sboozer@uchicago.edu> wrote:
[...]
I wonder what Okrand's experience with non-English speakers has been. TKD has only been translated into German AFAIK, or have there been other languages?
-- Voragh
------------------------------Original Message------------------------------ From: Lieven L. Litaer
Am 09.11.2020 um 21:13 schrieb Steven Boozer [Voragh] : Lieven (aka our "Klingon Teacher from Germany"), have you noticed a similar fixation on missing nouns by German-speaking newbies?
Yes, that's what I wrote in my initial message, where I said that many Terran languages have that problem.
As a side note, I was not focussing on verbs that can be used as nouns nouns, such as "drink" or "sleep". The obervation was a lot more that people tend to use "real" nouns which describe an action. Here are ome examples that we would be able to translate using verbs:
"What is the definition of xyz?" --> "how is xyz defined"
"What is your preferation?" --> What do your prefer?
"My intention is to..." --> "I intend to..."
"This is my final decision." --> I have decided.
"The Exploration of space..." --> "to explore space..."
"The preparation of the food is complete" --> "I have finished cooking"
And so one. I'm sure there are more cases like this, where we would recast this using a verb.
And then, suddenly, I just remembered a nice canon example: "My death sentence was commuted" {vImuHlu' net wuqHa'.} (ENT)
THERE! noun --> verb (I'll check if I find more canon proof for this.)
-- Lieven L. Litaer aka the "Klingon Teacher from Germany" _______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org
_______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org <mailto:tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org> http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org <http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org>
Am 10.11.2020 um 15:31 schrieb Will Martin:
The German version is notoriously bad, especially in the glosses, which very frequently stray by defining words by what Americans would likely consider to be the least likely, most restrictive stretch of a synonym.
I haven’t heard anyone criticize any of the other versions as severely as I’ve heard critiques of the German version. Germans apparently prefer the English version.
I'd like to add that I have corrected the German version in 2013, so I can now also recommend to use the German version, as long as one takes the updated version. The old, bad version is out of print so the chances are reduced to get the bad version, unless found on second hand stores. (As a side effect, I am still very proud to say that my name is printed on the introduction page of the Klingon dictionary. I never thought this would ever happen when I started leanring Klingon :-) ) The original German translation really was bad, not only using unlikely synonyms, but also partially have wrong translations and even opposite meanings ("...is never used" turned out as "...is always used"). There was a long article about this in HolQeD entitled "Trouble with tree trunks." -- Lieven L. Litaer aka the "Klingon Teacher from Germany" http://www.tlhInganHol.com http://klingon.wiki/En/DasOffizielleWörterbuch
Am 09.11.2020 um 23:25 schrieb Steven Boozer:
TKD has only been translated into German AFAIK, or have there been other languages?
The official/licensed translations are: 1995 Portuguese (Brasil): Dicionário da língua klingon 1998 German: Das offizielle Wörterbuch 1998 Italian: Il Dizionario Klingon 2008 Czech: Klingonský slovník Some Klingonists have translated the work into the following languages: 1998 Swedish: Klingonsk Ordbok 2008 Spanish: El Imperio Klingon (rough summary) 2017 Irish: Foclóir na Tliongáinise -- Lieven L. Litaer aka the "Klingon Teacher from Germany" http://www.tlhInganHol.com http://klingon.wiki/En/TheKlingonDictionary
I think Glen Proechel was working on an unofficial Russian translation, though this may have been only another rough summary. I do know that he was trying to teach a couple of Russian fans Klingon when he was in Khabarovsk (sometime in the early 2000s?). Voragh -----------------------------------Original Message----------------------------------- From: Lieven L. Litaer Sent: Tuesday, November 10, 2020 12:38 AM Am 09.11.2020 um 23:25 schrieb Steven Boozer:
TKD has only been translated into German AFAIK, or have there been other languages?
The official/licensed translations are: 1995 Portuguese (Brasil): Dicionário da língua klingon 1998 German: Das offizielle Wörterbuch 1998 Italian: Il Dizionario Klingon 2008 Czech: Klingonský slovník Some Klingonists have translated the work into the following languages: 1998 Swedish: Klingonsk Ordbok 2008 Spanish: El Imperio Klingon (rough summary) 2017 Irish: Foclóir na Tliongáinise _______________________________________________
On Mon, 9 Nov 2020 at 21:28, Lieven L. Litaer <levinius@gmx.de> wrote:
And then, suddenly, I just remembered a nice canon example: "My death sentence was commuted" {vImuHlu' net wuqHa'.} (ENT)
THERE! noun --> verb (I'll check if I find more canon proof for this.)
I think a good example is {chay' jura'}, literally "how do you command us?", subtitled as "what are your orders?" in Star Trek III. I think many beginners, if they were asked to translate "what are your orders?", would come up with {nuq bIH [order]meylIj'e'} and get stuck on missing a noun for "order, command". -- De'vID
(I am not trying to prove anything, just do some research.) I just checked TKW and actually found some canon phrases which are translated using verbs where a noun would have been possible. Maybe this does not pove anything, but these are good examples to show how you can rephrase a translation using verbs instead of nouns: The memory of you sings in my blood. bomDI' 'IwwIj qaqaw. (TKW, p. 17) lit: "When my blood sings, I remember you." A warrior does not complain about physical discomfort. loQ 'oy'DI' bepbe' SuvwI'. (TKW p. 46) lit: "When a warrior has a bit pain, he does not complain" A warrior fights to the death. wej Heghchugh vay', SuvtaH SuvwI'. (TKW p. 88) lit: "A warrior fights as long as he has not died." Only fools have no fear. not qoHpu''e' neH ghIjlu'. (TKW p. 88) lit: "Only fools are never scared." Fear is power. vay' DaghIjlaHchugh bIHoSghaj. (TKW p. 109) lit: "If you can scare someone, you are powerful." A fool's only achievement is death. Hegh neH chav qoH. (TKW p. 115) lit: "The fool only achieves death." An honorable death requires no vengeance. batlh Heghlu'chugh noDnISbe' vay'. (TKW p. 115) lit: "Somebody does not seek revenge if one dies honorably." The execution of one warrior brings shame to all. wa' SuvwI' muHlu'DI', tuHchoH Hoch SuvwI'pu'. (TKW p. 136) lit: "If one warrior is executed, all warriors begin to be ashamed." Remember the scent. vay' DalarghDI' yIqaw. (TKW p. 157) lit: "If you smell something, remember it." reH DuSIgh vavlI'. Your father is a part of you always.* (TKW p. 170) lit: "Your father always influences you." No pain, no gain. 'oy'be'lu'chugh Qapbe'lu'. (TKW p. 175) lit: "If one does not hurt, one does not win." -- Lieven L. Litaer aka the "Klingon Teacher from Germany" http://www.tlhInganHol.com http://klingon.wiki/En/Verb-centric
Well, obviously, that would be {nuq bIH ra’choHghachmeylIj}, right? Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.
On Nov 9, 2020, at 6:48 PM, De'vID <de.vid.jonpin@gmail.com> wrote:
On Mon, 9 Nov 2020 at 21:28, Lieven L. Litaer <levinius@gmx.de <mailto:levinius@gmx.de>> wrote: And then, suddenly, I just remembered a nice canon example: "My death sentence was commuted" {vImuHlu' net wuqHa'.} (ENT)
THERE! noun --> verb (I'll check if I find more canon proof for this.)
I think a good example is {chay' jura'}, literally "how do you command us?", subtitled as "what are your orders?" in Star Trek III.
I think many beginners, if they were asked to translate "what are your orders?", would come up with {nuq bIH [order]meylIj'e'} and get stuck on missing a noun for "order, command".
-- De'vID _______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org
I couldn't find any obiter dicta from Okrand about being "verb-centric" (though my search was a quick one). I imagine the phrase comes from the early days of the tlhIngan-Hol list in the 1990's when the known vocabulary of Klingon was much more restricted than it is now, requiring us to be more imaginative in our translating. Recasting a sentence to focus on a verb when a "necessary" noun was lacking was, and still is, good advice. Nowadays we have much more vocabulary and canonical examples to draw on. So much so that I am still updating my notes with the seven and a half pages (!) of new words and expressions from qep'a' 2020. And just last week I stumbled over the words provided or vetted by Okrand from the OZ and Hamletmachine translations. (Remember the good old days when we were happy with only three or four new words revealed at a qep'a' which we analyzed and discussed to death?) Voragh ------------------------------Original Message------------------------------ From: Lieven L. Litaer Sent: Monday, November 9, 2020 8:47 AM Am 09.11.2020 um 15:17 schrieb SuStel:
I don't tell people that Klingon is verb-centric. I focus more on > strategies of translating prepositions, adjectives, and genitives into > constructions that exist in Klingon.
That's an interesting point, and I'm curious to see how others argue about this. What I have observed is that many newbies come with phrases based on nouns like "My love for you is strong" and then we suggest them to rephrase it like "I love you very much". And then I recently started to wonder why we do that. Is it really the case that there are more verb-centric expressions or constructions than nouns? Or did we really just make that up many years ago, when we were missing so many words? (I actually noticed that after a detailed word count showed that we have about twice as many nouns than verbs; although 10% of them are names and transliterations.)
On 11/9/2020 10:16 AM, Steven Boozer wrote:
(Remember the good old days when we were happy with only three or four new words revealed at a qep'a' which we analyzed and discussed to death?)
And could memorize? -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
Okay, okay, I’ll confess it. I am absolutely positive that *I* and *I* alone am undeniably the first person on this list to use the term “verb-centric”. I coined the phrase here. It’s got nothing to do with canon or Okrand. It was merely an observation. Is it a valid observation? Yes, and no. I don’t think it’s useful as a foundational principal for teaching new people the language. It’s a stepping stone, not a bridge. It’s a small point of insight, not THE KEY TO THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ENGLISH AND KLINGON. It’s the thing that I noticed while beginning to use the language. Viewing English from Klingon, I became aware of how intensely English relies on nouns. It’s so common for us to use nouns as verbs, until the language finally admits, “okay, okay, you can use it as a verb, too.” Witness: phone, fax, telegraph, text, message, etc. These were nouns, and we replaced the action of using the noun with the noun word, treating it like a verb, until somebody decided the practice was common enough to update the dictionaries. I’ll phone you. I’ll message you. I’ll Skype you. Can you fax that? Don’t worry. I’ll MuseScore that tune for the band and PDF the lyrics. This is all stuff you can’t do in Klingon. It is true that Klingon has more nouns and that nouns do cool stuff grammatically, but the simple truth is that a lone verb in Klingon is a sentence, and a lone noun is not. Verbs have a prefix, nine types of suffix, plus Rovers, while nouns get five suffix types. Verbs provide the foundation of every Klingon sentence, while nouns have the role of adding levels of detail, decorating the theme of the action of the verb. Nouns get their grammatical function in a sentence based upon the relationship to the verb, either positionally or by Type 5 suffix. Stative verbs do define whether they are being used as adjectives or verbs based on relative position to the noun, and Relative Clauses hinge on which noun is the “Head Noun”, linking the Relative Clause to the Main Clause, these are special cases. By contrast, EVERY noun defines its grammatical role based upon its relationship to a verb. English uses relative pronouns, where Klingon uses a relative clause indicated by the suffix on the verb changing the mechanism from a noun to a verb, divorcing the relative pronoun from its identical question word in English. Klingon has more nouns than verbs in the vocabulary because each noun has a more narrow range of potential meaning than each verb, especially since so many of these nouns are Proper Nouns. Nouns are detail oriented, specifying the thing you are talking about, while verbs give you the general action, narrowed by the wide range of suffixes, with perhaps a few nouns tossed in, optionally, just to be clear. The earlier vocabulary in Klingon was weighted heavily toward verbs. Most of the more recent vocabulary has been nouns. I made my observation back before all these language programs that Okrand has been asked to provide words for asked for new words, almost exclusively nouns. Check out statistics, for those of you who like doing this. Starting at most recent new words and sifting back to the original vocabulary, look at how Okrand keeps coming up with new nouns to flesh out the vocabulary, and how rarely he sees need to come up with new verbs. In order to very quickly build a vocabulary that could express a wide range of meaning, Okrand started with mostly verbs, and as new word needs came out, a remarkable number of the original verbs have been able to carry meaning beyond their original intent through the use of suffixes, while most interest in new nouns… well… gosh, we better make up a new noun for that. The ones we’ve got won’t stretch that far. So, yeah, I think that Klingon is verb-centric compared to English. Okrand didn’t say that. I did. I don’t say it as an authority with any special platform from which to Preach The Truth. I’m a guy who has used the language for a longer time than most of you, and waay back in the past, I noticed this thing about the language, and I don’t think I was far off the mark. In Klingon, verbs are first, nouns are second, and everything else is chuvmey. In English, nouns are first. Verbs glue the nouns together, assisted by a wide, floral variety of helper words that are critical in determining the meaning of the sentence. Witness the example in a message years ago where we move the word “only” around among the words in the sentence “I hit the baby in the head.” Word order in English is like American salads: Tossed. Helper words can stitch together almost any order of nouns and verbs you like in English. Klingon has much more strict rules for word order, based on the positions of nouns and chuvmey relative to the verb at the core of each clause. It’s weird being the anonymous source of something argued about decades after I said it. charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.
On Nov 9, 2020, at 10:16 AM, Steven Boozer <sboozer@uchicago.edu> wrote:
I couldn't find any obiter dicta from Okrand about being "verb-centric" (though my search was a quick one).
I imagine the phrase comes from the early days of the tlhIngan-Hol list in the 1990's when the known vocabulary of Klingon was much more restricted than it is now, requiring us to be more imaginative in our translating. Recasting a sentence to focus on a verb when a "necessary" noun was lacking was, and still is, good advice.
Nowadays we have much more vocabulary and canonical examples to draw on. So much so that I am still updating my notes with the seven and a half pages (!) of new words and expressions from qep'a' 2020. And just last week I stumbled over the words provided or vetted by Okrand from the OZ and Hamletmachine translations. (Remember the good old days when we were happy with only three or four new words revealed at a qep'a' which we analyzed and discussed to death?)
Voragh
------------------------------Original Message------------------------------ From: Lieven L. Litaer Sent: Monday, November 9, 2020 8:47 AM
Am 09.11.2020 um 15:17 schrieb SuStel:
I don't tell people that Klingon is verb-centric. I focus more on > strategies of translating prepositions, adjectives, and genitives into > constructions that exist in Klingon.
That's an interesting point, and I'm curious to see how others argue about this.
What I have observed is that many newbies come with phrases based on nouns like "My love for you is strong" and then we suggest them to rephrase it like "I love you very much".
And then I recently started to wonder why we do that. Is it really the case that there are more verb-centric expressions or constructions than nouns? Or did we really just make that up many years ago, when we were missing so many words?
(I actually noticed that after a detailed word count showed that we have about twice as many nouns than verbs; although 10% of them are names and transliterations.)
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On 11/9/2020 11:17 AM, Will Martin wrote:
It’s the thing that I noticed while beginning to use the language. Viewing English from Klingon, I became aware of how intensely English relies on nouns. It’s so common for us to use nouns as verbs, until the language finally admits, “okay, okay, you can use it as a verb, too.”
Does that show that English relies on nouns or that it relies so much on verbs that it appropriates nouns to do verb jobs?
Witness: phone, fax, telegraph, text, message, etc. These were nouns, and we replaced the action of using the noun with the noun word, treating it like a verb, until somebody decided the practice was common enough to update the dictionaries. I’ll phone you. I’ll message you. I’ll Skype you. Can you fax that? Don’t worry. I’ll MuseScore that tune for the band and PDF the lyrics.
This is all stuff you can’t do in Klingon.
More specifically, it's stuff /we're/ not allowed to do in Klingon, because we're not Klingons setting the usage patterns of the Klingon language. But we have evidence that Klingons may do this sort of thing in the noun-verb pairs that we do have. But only monosyllabic words have noun-verb pairs, so it's possible that the process tends to go the other way in Klingon: verbs sometimes become nouns over time. The language of the section on *-ghach* ("It is not known if all verbs can be used as nouns...") perhaps hits at this.
Nouns get their grammatical function in a sentence based upon the relationship to the verb, either positionally or by Type 5 suffix.
The roles granted by type 5 suffixes do not in any way come from a relationship to the verb. Type 5'd nouns just get stuck at the front of the sentence for lack of any other place to put them. They mix with the adverbials. They can also be time expressions that also have no relationship to the verb other than just being in the same sentence. The point that all complete Klingons sentences must have a verb is correct; the point that all syntactic nouns are subordinate to that verb is not. They also come FIRST. That ought to count for something. In English, if you want to establish a context before diving into a sentence, you put it first and set it off with a comma: /In my room, I constructed the weapon./ If you put the context last, it's not set off by a comma, but it also has less importance in the sentence: /I constructed the weapon in my room./ In Klingon we don't have a choice; the locative always comes first: *pa'wIjDaq nuH vImutlhmoHpu'.*
English uses relative pronouns, where Klingon uses a relative clause indicated by the suffix on the verb changing the mechanism from a noun to a verb, divorcing the relative pronoun from its identical question word in English.
Eh? What? I don't understand what process you're describing here. English relative pronouns are one of those areas where it's better to rethink your approach to your idea using the tools of Klingon. There is no single, formulaic translation of relative pronouns. /I know what word you said/ might be rendered with a relative clause in Klingon *(mu' Dajatlhpu'bogh vISov),* but /I know what you're doing/ wouldn't need to be *(Qu'lIj vISov).* It depends on the available vocabulary and what you're trying to say.
Klingon has more nouns than verbs in the vocabulary because each noun has a more narrow range of potential meaning than each verb, especially since so many of these nouns are Proper Nouns. Nouns are detail oriented, specifying the thing you are talking about, while verbs give you the general action, narrowed by the wide range of suffixes, with perhaps a few nouns tossed in, optionally, just to be clear.
English loads a ton of meaning into the verb /be./ I'm doing the Welsh course on Duolingo, and I've discovered that Welsh places even more emphasis on its version of /be (bod):/ most sentences use it in some way. Even the many ways to say /yes/ in Welsh are just various forms of /bod./ Does that mean English and Welsh are verb-centric languages? (No. And in Welsh, most verbs are actually "verb-nouns," able to be used as either in the way English /singing /can be.) I don't think the breadth of meaning for any given word or group of words is indicative of how "centric" a language is, either way.
The earlier vocabulary in Klingon was weighted heavily toward verbs. Most of the more recent vocabulary has been nouns. I made my observation back before all these language programs that Okrand has been asked to provide words for asked for new words, almost exclusively nouns.
More specifically, the earlier vocabulary in Klingon was weighted heavily toward monosyllables, and we know that almost all verbs are monosyllables. One might propose that the older, core words of Klingon are the monosyllables, and that the newer words are mostly complex nouns that came about through centuries of combinations of those monosyllables, but that since "verbs are monosyllabic" remains a general rule, the process doesn't work for creating verbs. This proposal would suggest that nouns are far more productive in Klingon than verbs. (I'm not making this proposal; I'm just showing that there are possible explanations other than "Klingon is verb-centric" for the preponderance of multisyllabic nouns outside the originally known core of words.)
Check out statistics, for those of you who like doing this. Starting at most recent new words and sifting back to the original vocabulary, look at how Okrand keeps coming up with new nouns to flesh out the vocabulary, and how rarely he sees need to come up with new verbs.
This just speaks more to the fact that there are far more things in the world than actions to perform on or by them. A fork has words for the /points, slots, tines, root, back, neck,/ and /handle,/ but you generally only /use/ a fork or, by combining with a preposition, /eat with/ one. Most technologies have an abundance of nouns for different parts of things. Most arts have an abundance of nouns for different components of things. Most industries have an abundance of nouns for everything. Sometimes there are jargony verbs, but often these are derived from the nouns. Klingon is not immune to this. Think of all the body parts we have words for. As a counterpoint, consider that the words for fingers and toes are verbs, and that the owners of these limbs actively use them. It's just a different balance.
In order to very quickly build a vocabulary that could express a wide range of meaning, Okrand started with mostly verbs,
I'd like to see a formal count before accepting this claim (including only root words). I doubt it.
In English, nouns are first. Verbs glue the nouns together, assisted by a wide, floral variety of helper words that are critical in determining the meaning of the sentence. Witness the example in a message years ago where we move the word “only” around among the words in the sentence “I hit the baby in the head.”
You can do the same thing in Klingon. *ghu nach vIqIp. */I hit the baby's head. /*ghu neH nach vIqIp.*/I hit the head of only the baby (no one else's head). /*ghu nach neH vIqIp.*/I hit only the baby's head (no other part of the baby). /*ghu nach vIqIp neH.*/I only hit the baby's head (I don't do anything more significant). /*ghu nach vIqIp jIH neH.*/Only I hit the baby's head./ I don't see how this illustrates how verbs are central and other words are "floral."
Word order in English is like American salads: Tossed. Helper words can stitch together almost any order of nouns and verbs you like in English.
Overstated. English word order is flexible, but not completely so. English has almost no case system by which you can identify noun roles. Preposition objects need to come in certain places (and I'm not referring to the bogus rule about not ending a sentence with a preposition). Certain word orders are only allowed in poetic or archaic registers. (I can say /I am going to the store,/ but only in a poem or historical roleplay can I say /To the store go I./) English has a LOT of hidden rules that native speakers simply aren't aware of unless they've studied them.
Klingon has much more strict rules for word order, based on the positions of nouns and chuvmey relative to the verb at the core of each clause.
Klingon does have a more strict order of syntax, but it also has its flexibilities. Nouns and adverbials get tossed into the pre-object soup of sentences. Words and suffixes can often be dropped at the discretion of the speaker, and there's even an entire register in which even more words and affixes can be dropped. Different cohorts will reorder words sometimes. We sometimes argue about the order of words in noun-noun constructions and can't the benefit or indeed the difference of one order over another. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
participants (6)
-
De'vID -
Lieven L. Litaer -
Russ Perry Jr -
Steven Boozer -
SuStel -
Will Martin