Hello.

[OmnificienT]

nuqneH,

I was in Amsterdam yesterday and I found a "Klingon Dictionary" there (second edition). I must say, very interesting grammar. This, essentially, is the reason I'm here now.

I must say, I like the forum. It looks very professional.

A final question: how active are these boards? Would they be worth checking every week (I'm looking at the dates of the last posts)?

Goodbye.

[Kesvirit]

nuqneH, OmnificienT, and welcome to the Forums! It is interesting that TKD is responsible for bringing you here. Most people don’t get to that aspect of Klindom without at least some prior interest in Klingon culture. How did you go from discovering TKD to finding us?

You do us honor by your appraisal of the Forums as professional. Credit for that goes mostly to founder Lady K’Zin, who chose the software, and Klythe, who hammered it into shape.

As to whether the boards are worth checking every week? Well, I certainly think so, but I will admit to having a bias.... I am here almost every day during the course of my duties a Board Administrator, and sometimes even have time remaining to actually post to discussions. Only you can decide your interest level and must judge for yourself how often you want to visit.

The activity levels of the boards vary quite a bit. Sometimes we go for several days without a post. Sometimes when a particulalry popular discussion topic comes up, there may be multiple posts on one thread during the day as participants respond back and forth. According to the Administrative Statistics page, there have been an average of 4.96 posts per day since we switched to this software in August 2005. Last month there were 20 new threads started and 140 posts posted.

Also, per the New Posting Permissions:

I’d like to remind everyone that they can request an email notification when a new reply is added to a given thread by using the “Notify” button at the top of the thread. The same goes for the different Forum sections. Both of these are akin to “subscribing” to the thread/section in question. They are useful because replies to a given thread can trickle in over time, and a question you posted may get an answer months later. Make sure to keep the email address in your profile current.

I hope these factors help to answer your question. Have a look around and see what interests you.

[OmnificienT]

I used a google search with "klingon forum" and then the Klingon Imperial Forums came up.

Of course, I like Star Trek.

[SoplaHtaHwI']

qavan,

just out of curiosity: did you find any other Klingon fora?
I know there are a few (can't name them though 8-)

[OmnificienT]

I did notice them yes. One on Amazon and the rest looked like garbage to me. This one looked as if it was very good, so I chose this one : -P

By the by: nice to see that someone knows what the plural of forum ought to be.

[Klythe]

    Hullo and welcome, OmnificienT. 

    Yes, the grammar is designed to be as alien as possible, selecting the some of the rarest structures or in some cases deliberately breaking trends considered to be "universal" amoung Terran languages, just to be more alien looking.   In that way it is probably one of the hardest languages for most people to learn.
That's pretty much the reason I am here, only it was the unofficial Klingon language before tlhIngan Hol and it's words that do not easily translate to Terran languages because they describe concepts we do not have.

    As far as the look goes, that mostly depends on what theme you are using.  Our defualt theme, "Bloody Mara" is a custom recolor of the default theme that Kesvirit and I worked out together.   The other new themes might be a bit more striking.  We've tweaked them a bit, but we can always do better especially as we get more feedback.   I'm more of a code monkey myself, graphic design is not one of my greatest strengths, I've mostly been relying on Kesvirit's eye for colours and styles, so I'm definately interested to hear any issues or areas for improvement.

     Basically the motivation of the boards has been that we are all volunteers and no one is getting paid for our Klingon knowledge, so whatever time and effort people chose to spend here is to be appreciated for what it is worth.  I know many of us have busy lives and perhaps can't visit the forums and participate as much as we would like.  So, yes as Kesvirit says, visit as often as your interests and time allow.  We'll still be here when you do.   As far as I know we are the longest running active forum focused on digging deeper to understanding  Klingons on their own terms and in terms that can be understood by Terrans. 

   Now there is a new topic right there, when you borrow a word from a language, do you borrow it's plural also?   I don't think there is any hard fast rule, I believe we will find there are valid examples of both in English.   We tend to error on the side of readability and understandability over imposing Latin grammar rules on English, which is a controversial matter amoung grammarians.   Me, I don't hesitate to proudly split an infinitive, I won't say "to go boldy" instead of "to boldly go", even though it violates the (latin) grammar we are told is correct English.  A lot of those grammatical rules that most trip up English speakers are attempts to artificially impose latin grammar on English and were in fact made up in the previous century, just so Grammar experts could sell more grammar books. }}:P

[Kesvirit]

Klythe:  As far as the look goes, that mostly depends on what theme you are using.  Our defualt theme, "Bloody Mara" is a custom recolor of the default theme that Kesvirit and I worked out together.   The other new themes might be a bit more striking.  We've tweaked them a bit, but we can always do better especially as we get more feedback.

Something we have both been remiss in not telling you -- instructions on how to change themes can be found here.

Yes, the grammar is designed to be as alien as possible, selecting the some of the rarest structures or in some cases deliberately breaking trends considered to be "universal" amoung Terran languages, just to be more alien looking.

y0da777 found a video by Okrand that elaborates on this at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4553276866205869246.

We tend to error on the side of readability and understandability over imposing Latin grammar rules on English, which is a controversial matter amoug grammarians.   Me, I don't hesitate to proudly split an infinitive, or say "to boldly go", even though it violates latin grammar.  A lot of those grammatical rules are attempts to artificially impose latin grammar on English were made up in the previous century...

As I cut the thread’s engines and we drift dangerously near OT territory, I have a brief story about that. And we know how Klingons like their stories....
Many years ago in an English class, the discussion drifted to the opening of the Star Trek episodes. I theatrically grabbed my head and started ranting about “the whoosh... that g------ whoosh! It is wrong! It is blasphemous! It Should Not Be! Don’t those idiots know that spund cannot travel through a vacuum etc. etc. etc.” Our teacher then grabbed the lectern and shook it until it started scooting across the floor and (to the best of my memory) declared, “That split infinitive gets me every time! Didn’t those people make it through grade school before they got paid to write for television?! You do not split an infinitive! Ever! Yes, I know it’s optional these days, but You Just Don’t Do That!”

My point? Er.  ::pauses::  Too much Star Trek can drive one over the event horizon into madness.