The role of Metaphor in language.

[Klythe]

posted on 6-9-2003 at 04:45 AM

The role of Metaphor in language.

This discussion thread has been spun off from a request to translate (what I believe to be) a poetic metaphor into tlhIngon Hol. I will explain what I mean by poetic metaphor once the old posts have been move over.

To start: Klythe carelessly asks qurgh (I failed to repress my desire to capitalize proper nouns, bad Klythe).
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Qurgh. Why do you think Klingons must be so literal, when the language is full of rich metaphors such as my blood sings...
 

[qurgh]

posted on 6-9-2003 at 03:20 PM

I can't move things, but I can copy and paste I'll clear out the other thread.

Originally posted by Klythe Qurgh. Why do you think Klingons must be so literal, when the language is full of rich metaphors such as my blood sings...

I know that Klingon is a very rich language, but all the metaphors we have, we have been given by Okrand because Maltz, a Klingon, gave them to him. Making up knew idioms has always been a semi-taboo subject because we don't fully understand the Klingon language in that field.

Idioms in other languages tend to sound very strange when translated. Such an example is:
ghIchwIj DabochmoHchugh ghIchlIj qanob
If you shine my nose I will give you your nose

Thats a Klingon idiom, the words mean what they mean, but the sentance as a whole means something completely different to a Klingon than the English means to us. It's from Power Klingon if you haven't heard it before.

We have a whole book full of these kinds of setances (The Klingon Way) and they give us good insight into the Klingon people, but unless you live in a culture and are a part of it, your idioms are not going to make sense to the people it is meant for. We are Humans speaking Klingon so unless we go to Qo'noS and live with Klingons, we will never be able to make idioms correctly.

What I'm trying to show is how another Klingon speaker would see the translatetions you give. Since language is used to communicate ideas and not confuse people, you can't start using metaphors and hope the person reading the phrase understands the metaphors you made up. There are Klingon speakers from nearly all the cultures of the world, and in many what makes sense as an English metaphor doesn't make sense to them. So if you use English speaker metaphors, such as yIn He to mean the path of life, someone who is German or Chinese might not understand it, and will translate it as The Life's route, as if Life was the name of a ship since thats what the sentance really means.

When you translate an english language idiom, your resulting translation will often be very long since you have to explain everything as you go along. It's much easier to just recast the English and translate that, than relying on prior knowledge of English metaphors.

I'm not trying to bash you Klythe, in fact your translations are grammatically very good, and show you have a good grasp of the language. What I'm trying to show is that we as Klingon speakers can only do certain things. I've tried making idioms before, and as soon as I've said them to another Klingon speaker, they have looked at me like "What the h*ll are you saying?". Followed by a round of "nuqjatlh???". I happened to use an British metaphor in my translate, and the orginal made no sense to the Americans present, and the Klingon made even less sense. And this was with fellow English speakers. I just don't want to see you fall into that trap as well. Remember, every time you translate something into Klingon, think about the literal meaning of the phrase without any metaphorical influences and then think if it really does covey the idea you were after.

In your first translation, you were close to something:
HeghwIj buv cher yInwIj wIv
If you had used wIv in both spots, I would have said that was a good rendition of the phrase,
HeghwIj wIv cher yInwIj wIv
My life choices establish my death choices

Yes, it's not quite the meaing we want, but it's a good try.

With that, I hope my post made sense and helps you understand my motives.

[Klythe]

posted on 6-13-2003 at 04:34 AM

I delayed posting this, because I am now confused on qurgh's position on metaphor. I cannot merge what is said here to what was said in the (Moderator's note: indecipherable thread code) with what is said here. So I will post what I intended to and ask you to explain the distinction between and disadvantage of "The course of my life" (which seems to me to be a self explanatory metaphor common to many space and seafearing cultures), compared with a more awkwardly explained "He sees what cannot be seen. He is a seer." This could refer to the first one to use a telescope or a microscore to see what cannot be seen with the naked eye... Even at it's most literal "My life's course", still means "where my life goes", and a Klingon choses where his life goes, at least to some degree...

I know that Klingon is a very rich language, but all the metaphors we have, we have been given by Okrand because Maltz, a Klingon, gave them to him. Making up knew idioms has always been a semi-taboo subject because we don't fully understand the Klingon language in that field.

I understand that clearly. However I would make clear, that there is a difference between an idiom, which is an expression with a known meaning that cannot be derived from the individual words and the reason for its meaning may or may be lost in time, to a metaphor which is an analogy to something the reader is expected to be familiar enough to accept the comparison.

Recently we have seen discussions of the cultural metaphors which all Klingon would accept as more-or-less universal. Blood has a voice, water is weak and arguments and debates are battles. There are also artistic metaphors in all natural languages, except perhaps vulqanganpu' who no longer seem to express themselves poetically. Artistic metaphors speak only to how the speaker/author feels about the topic he discusses. The artist defines the metaphor in the context that it is used. If it is popular enough it may eventually become a cultural metaphor.

Amoung those who perform duties for the KLI, helping to build a Klingon corpus I can see how these would be discouraged because the might imply a cultural metaphor where none exists. But this is not going into any work to be included in any official Klingon Corpus. If you were to block all casual, temporary, artistic uses of metaphor you would make tlhIngan Hol sound as if it were spoken by Vulcans not by warrior-poets.

...unless you live in a culture and are a part of it, your idioms are not going to make sense to the people it is meant for. We are Humans speaking Klingon so unless we go to Qo'noS and live with Klingons, we will never be able to make idioms correctly.

What I'm trying to show is how another Klingon speaker would see the translatetions you give.

So we cannot understand Klingon idioms enough to make new idioms(which I am not trying to do, I only sought a temporary metaphor), but you presume to know how an actual(presumably typical) tlhIngon Hol speaker would interpret what was said? That requires the same level of understanding, if not more. Also, from what I can tell, idioms generally cannot be traced back to s single creator. Some can, but most are shared amoung like-thinkers until the ideas and values behind the idiom realise full cultural ownership. I wouldn't dare try to create an idiom in any language. Or... maybe.. I probably tried at one point and realised just how unlikely that I could get everyone to think the way I do on some matter...

Since language is used to communicate ideas and not confuse people, you can't start using metaphors and hope the person reading the phrase understands the metaphors you made up.

Why not. Natural language speakers do it all the time. The person who first used the word "computer" to mean an electronic device, forever changed the meaning from "someone who computes" into it's current meaning. And the new meaning was understood immediately through the power of context. The preceeding isn't the best analogy, it might not even be a good analogy, but still gets the point acrossed.

Especially in a language with a limited vocabulary (no natural language an have an infinate number of words, so in a way all languages have limited vocabularies), the value of metaphor *is* communication.

*********************************
Arguably, the extension of word meanings by metaphor and other mechanisms is exactly what language is used for, grouping ideas that are similar enough for the moment to use the same word to describe them. In later moments, modifiers may be used to differentiate the meanings, or as the differences become important, new words are formed to show that concepts are different enough. Perhaps the same thing also happens the same way when two ideas once thought to be alien turn out to no longer have an important difference. In Physics, Electricity and magnetism have become Elecromagnetism, Space and Time have become Spacetime... Matter and Energy haven't yet become merged in meaning, despite they are the same thing, enough people find it useful to discuss them separately... That and Matterenergy sounds wierd...

Simply put I believe metaphor is a fundamental part of the process of redrawing the fuzzy lines of abstraction that mark the border of one morpheme's meaning. Without that process language becomes lifeless and devoid of new ideas worthy of communicaing.
 

[Kesvirit]

posted on 6-13-2003 at 10:19 AM

As a non-linguist butts in....

quoth qurgh I know that Klingon is a very rich language, but all the metaphors we have, we have been given by Okrand because Maltz, a Klingon, gave them to him.

:rolleyes: There is the real world, and then there is the pretend world. No Real Life language is dictated by a single person any more than it can remain as "pure", static and restricted as Okrand and his alter ego Maltz would keep tlhIngan Hol. No such language would survive in usage for any length of time because it could not keep up with changes in society. Language follows the same path and metaphor as komerexi: nal komerex, khesterex. Any language that cannot expand and change with the times is doomed to shrink in useage and influence until it had faded from use into obscurity.

quoth Klythe There are also artistic metaphors in all natural languages

Would the one provide some Klingon examples of this for edification?

- Kesvirit

[qurgh]

posted on 6-13-2003 at 12:52 PM

Originally posted by Kesvirit
There is the real world, and then there is the pretend world. No Real Life language is dictated by a single person any more than it can remain as "pure", static and restricted as Okrand and his alter ego Maltz would keep tlhIngan Hol. No such language would survive in usage for any length of time because it could not keep up with changes in society.

tlhIngan Hol is NOT a natural language. There is one person who is the keeper of tlhIngan Hol, and that is Dr Okrand. Paramount owns the language, Dr Okrand expands it. It's been used since the 80s without any problems. Every 6 months or so Okrand adds some more words or phrases. That is how tlhIngan Hol works. We learn it, we use it, but we do not change it. If you don't think thats right, I suggest joining the KLI list and asking someone there for a reason, since they will be able to explain it much better than I. When you learn Klingon that it simply a fact that has to be accepted, wether it is liked or not. Sorry.

Originally posted by Klythe
Recently we have seen discussions of the cultural metaphors which all Klingon would accept as more-or-less universal. Blood has a voice, water is weak and arguments and debates are battles.

We have been given these metaphors by Okrand, there is a whole section in Klingon for the Galatic Traveler. I suggest grabbing a couple of that book and reading it, since it explains how metaphors work in Klingon.

Amoung those who perform duties for the KLI, helping to build a Klingon corpus...

The KLI does NOT build the Klingon corpus, Okrand does. The KLI simply supports the learning of Klingon and tries to get the language out to the masses. They do not expand the language beyond what it already contains.

So we cannot understand Klingon idioms enough to make new idioms(which I am not trying to do, I only sought a temporary metaphor), but you presume to know how an actual(presumably typical) tlhIngon Hol speaker would interpret what was said?

I've been learning Klingon for over 10 years now, and I've been in the KLI list that whole time. I have seen this arguement many times. A typical tlhIngan Hol speaker would be any of the fluent and semi-fluent speakers in the KLI. I know how they would respond, since I've asked the same questions. As soon as you "make something up" you will have problems. Time and time again we are told to translate the idea not the words. We don't need to use metaphors when translating, we simply translate what the metaphor means.

For example, I wanted to translate: He is as happy as a sand flea.
I would actually translate: He is very happy

Because thats what the phrase means, I don't need to try and come up with words for sand and flea, because the actual meaning of the sentance is what I want to get across. For phrases like "the course of life" I can just use "yIn" life. I don't need to come up with the course bit because Klingon already has a word that refers to the idea of life.

Why not. Natural language speakers do it all the time.

Yes, natural language speakers do, but if look the people who coin new words and sayings in a Language are fluent speakers who have that natural language as their first language.

tlhIngan Hol is neither a natural language (it is a controlled artifical language governed by it's creator) nor are their any speakers who have Klingon as their first language.

The day there is a fluent Klingon speaker, who speaks Klingon as their first language, then that person alone will be able to coin phrases, but since that will never happen, we have to leave it to Okrand. If you really want something added to the language, go to a qep'a' and ask him to add it.

In the history of Klingon there has only even been one word that has gained a new meaning simply from usage. That is the word:
'o' - aft
This word was used by a large group of KLI people to refer to the aft of a person (ya bottom) when playing the Hokey Pokey in Klingon. Since there wasn't a word for that part of the body.

Simply put I believe metaphor is a fundamental part of the process of redrawing the fuzzy lines of abstraction that mark the border of one morpheme's meaning. Without that process language becomes lifeless and devoid of new ideas worthy of communicaing.

I agree, metaphor is good for a language, any language, even tlhIngan Hol. What I'm saying is that we, as speakers, cannot start making them up. In Klingon for the Galactic Traveler we are given a whole chapter on Idiom and smilies, from page 105 to 133. My suggestion to anyone who wants to make up these kinds of phrases is to read that chapter a few times and once you know all of them, plus all the idioms in The Klingon Way, and become an expert of Klingon idomatic usage, then you'll have the understanding to go on and try and make idioms/smilies/metaphors.

I'm not trying to bash anyones attempts at learning Klingon here, I'm just saying that as with anything in life no one should try and do something until they understand what they are doing. Just as you wouldn't try and make an operating system without knowing how OSs work, or try and build a house without knowing how to use a saw, then you shouldn't try and expand Klingon until you have a complete understanding of it. So far I have only ever met one person who has reached that level and thats Captain Krankor, the famous Klingon grammarian who would most likely be able to answer all these questions with a couple of sentances... Maybe I'll go ask him his opinion of creating new Klingon metaphors....

[Klythe]

posted on 6-13-2003 at 03:34 PM

The KLI does NOT build the Klingon corpus, Okrand does. The KLI simply supports the learning of Klingon and tries to get the language out to the masses. They do not expand the language beyond what it already contains.

Okrand provides the words and the syntax. He provides the vocabulary, not the corpus. A corpus is the collection of native language works a linguist studies, not the works that describe thi language to readers of other languages. Works such as KHamlet, ghIlghameS, Much Ado About Nothing, these are the Corpus of Klingon. TKD, KGS, TKW, are not the corpus, they are reference works. For 'Gath's sakes the KLI maintains the Extended Corpus word list on it's site to catalog what words are attributed to a klingon language in books not considered to be part of the true Klingon Corpus, which they do write.

Because thats what the phrase means, I don't need to try and come up with words for sand and flea, because the actual meaning of the sentance is what I want to get across. For phrases like "the course of life" I can just use "yIn" life. I don't need to come up with the course bit because Klingon already has a word that refers to the idea of life.

I do understand that. Metaphors should never be *translated*. But if you know your audience well enough, you can risk crafting a new one that they will understand. If you are translating a poet or an orator, the burden is to match thier metaphors with metaphors speakers of your language will understand. To simply strip away the metaphor does as much justice to the text as blindly translating them. You are changing the expression just as much.

Life is not adequate. My state of being alive does not determine how I wil die, only that one day I will. How my life moves through space time, however will determine that. Notice that I am not using "The course of my life" as the English idiom to refer to it's duration. I am crafting a metaphor based on what is understood by those who have experience with steering vessels. If life is a vessel, then I steer it with my choices.

If you like seer, you still have not explained why it is superior to life-course.

Yes, natural language speakers do, but if look the people who coin new words and sayings in a Language are fluent speakers who have that natural language as their first language.

tlhIngan Hol is neither a natural language (it is a controlled artifical language governed by it's creator) nor are their any speakers who have Klingon as their first language.

Do we not translate in character? I do. For tlhay'Iv(klythe) TlhIngan Hol is a natural language he is fluent with. It may or may not be his first language, but it's probably co-first with klingonaase. Now as long as I let people know I'm crafting my own metaphors, as long as people understand my words are my own and not representative of typical usage, (because I am far from being typical either as a klingon or as a human) then my audience will understand how I am expressing myself, and also understand that this is not typical usage of the language. And when you get right down to it, isn't all art untypical usage? I mean except Andy Worhol, but I still wonder if that is art...

I agree, metaphor is good for a language, any language, even tlhIngan Hol.

I did not say good. I said metaphor is part of the whole point of having a language in the first place. That's a bit higher standard than saying it is merely a good thing for a language to have... I mean if it's convienent, but it's not worth going out of your way for...

In Klingon for the Galactic Traveler we are given a whole chapter on Idiom and smilies, from page 105 to 133. My suggestion to anyone who wants to make up these kinds of phrases is to read that chapter a few times and once you know all of them, plus all the idioms in The Klingon Way, and become an expert of Klingon idomatic usage, then you'll have the understanding to go on and try and make idioms/smilies/metaphors.

What makes you think that I have not?

I'm not trying to bash anyones attempts at learning Klingon here, I'm just saying that as with anything in life no one should try and do something until they understand what they are doing. Just as you wouldn't try and make an operating system without knowing how OSs work, or try and build a house without knowing how to use a saw, then you shouldn't try and expand Klingon until you have a complete understanding of it. So far I have only ever met one person who has reached that level and thats Captain Krankor, the famous Klingon grammarian who would most likely be able to answer all these questions with a couple of sentances... Maybe I'll go ask him his opinion of creating new Klingon metaphors....

I would like no know if anyone thinks my metaphors are not compatible with Klingon thinking. So far what I have read, I believe they are. You have not said that you think they are not Klingon, only you do not think I should have the right to create any metaphor. I would hear from anyone if ever they think I am being less than Klingon (when I'm trying to be Klingon that is...) I wish to be as Klingon as I can be.

}}:-E But I will not be told, not even by Qanqor HoD, that I can not make metaphors in a language. If it does not allow any speaker to create metaphor, then it is not a language. It's little more than a computer language, only useful to talking with computers. }}:-]
 

[Kesvirit]

posted on 6-16-2003 at 09:43 AM

That which does not allow for the growth of metaphor is no language.

quoth qurgh

* The KLI does NOT build the Klingon corpus, Okrand does. The KLI simply supports the learning of Klingon and tries to get the language out to the masses. They do not expand the language beyond what it already contains.

* tlhIngan Hol is NOT a natural language. There is one person who is the keeper of tlhIngan Hol, and that is Dr Okrand. Paramount owns the language, Dr Okrand expands it.

* tlhIngan Hol is neither a natural language (it is a controlled artifical language governed by it's creator)

All of these statements mark tlhIngan as not a language to be studied as such, but a cult. Any one person who seeks to control others by controlling their means of speech ends up controlling and manipulating their thoughts. Your assertion that:

The KLI simply supports the learning of Klingon and tries to get the language out to the masses.

is particularly telling. Why anyone would deliberately seek to become tokhe straav' to a financial empire and its messiah-by-contract?! Such actions hardly come across as Klingon.

Unless of course being a cog in the Paraborg/Okrand/KLI machine is part of a plan to conquer the conglomerate and achieve a position of power and control. That would be what I would expect from a highly ambitious and knowledgable Klingon with extensive specialized knowledge. Yet I warn you that such an undertaking is destined to fail: the Paraborg Empire has vast forces of !metaphor alert! law warriors who have you hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned.

Every 6 months or so Okrand adds some more words or phrases. That is how tlhIngan Hol works. We learn it, we use it, but we do not change it. *** When you learn Klingon that it simply a fact that has to be accepted, wether it is liked or not.*** The KLI simply supports the learning of Klingon and tries to get the language out to the masses.

A language that does not allow for change or expansion by those who purport to use it is no language. It is a code. As with most codes, it has restricted access with the apparent aim of keeping "the masses" ignorant, uninvolved, uninformed, and "out of the loop."

In Klingon for the Galactic Traveler we are given a whole chapter on Idiom and smilies, from page 105 to 133. My suggestion to anyone who wants to make up these kinds of phrases is to read that chapter a few times and once you know all of them, plus all the idioms in The Klingon Way, and become an expert of Klingon idomatic usage, then you'll have the understanding to go on and try and make idioms/smilies/metaphors

In my agreement with zan Klythe, "What makes you think I have not?" Who bestowed upon you the power to pass judgement on another's understanding of either language forms or Klingon culture? Not the Great and Powerful Okrand, certainly. ("Pay no attention to the man behind the copyright..." Translation for the idiom-impaired: "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Ignore the fact that someone else is manipulating your reality by pulling your strings and levers.")

Rereading the KGT chapter mentioned above, I count forty idioms and thirty-six similies, but no metaphors. Are you to tell me that a language that spans an entire Empire and then some contains only sixty-six non-literal descriptive phrases and no metaphors whatsoever?

It's been used since the 80s without any problems.

I have enough difficulties communicating via both the spoken and written word. Anything or anyone one further seeking to curtail my attempts definitely presents a problem! You gave up after a single attempt at creating a metaphor was unsuccessful. Do not try to impose this failure on the rest of us.

- Kesvirit


 

[qurgh]

posted on 6-16-2003 at 06:40 PM

Originally posted by Kesvirit
All of these statements mark tlhIngan as not a language to be studied as such, but a cult. Any one person who seeks to control others by controlling their means of speech ends up controlling and manipulating their thoughts.

Yes, it is a very annoying situation to be in. But unfortuntaly Paramount owns the Klingon Language and they have millions of dollars and even more hi-priced lawyers to back up their position.

Once, in the past, someone tried to do work with the Klingon language and published a book. That book was "The Secret Fighting Arts of the Warrior Race.". A great book, a very rare book now, and the reason is it rare is because Paramount didn't want it to happen. So they shut it down in the blink of an eye. I personally do not want to be sued by Paramount, hence I stick to the rules.

Why anyone would deliberately seek to become tokhe straav' to a financial empire and its messiah-by-contract?!

I am not a slave to anyone, I choose what I create with the language, we just cannot change the language. There is a difference. If you do not wish to make money from your stories, you can give them away and write anything you like. You cannot change or add to the language because doing so renders it useless. When you start making up words, everyone starts making up words. When that happens people make words for things which can already be expressing in Klingon, they start making more nouns, verb, adjectives, number words, etc. And soon it becomes like Klingonaase, a language of bits, scattered all over the part which no one can really use to communicate.

The reason we sit back and let Okrand stay the keeper of the language is two fold:
1) He made it, he has a right to have some say over his own work
2) He keeps track of everything, he makes sure it doesn't spiral out of control and that it stays true to the orginal ideas of the language.

A language that does not allow for change or expansion by those who purport to use it is no language. It is a code.

Is Latin a code? No, it's a language, it hasn't been changed in years.
Is C/C++ a code? No, it's a language, it is controled by a group of people and the OS you are using to read this post works because of that.

You have to look back in history. Natural languages have often been controled by a group or body of people. Even English is controled in that way. Yes, I can make up new words and slang, since I am a natural speaker, but those words will not be in a dictionary, and for the most part saying, "Flooby looby gratsive suphonger" means nothing, no matter how much I protest that the words mean, "I like dancing on a cliff with a carrot on the my head." If it's not in the dictionary, then people will say I'm mad.

Since is how most languages are. Native speakers will always create the slang and idioms. There are no native speakers of Klingon because they are a fictional race. Okrand, as the creator of the language, can create slang and idioms because he made it. Just as Linux is created a run by a group people, and they decide what things go into it, and, just like Linux, if you have a request for a specfic word of phrase, you can always take that request to Okrand. This has happened many times.
I can never understand why people feel like they always have to expand tlhIngan Hol, they have translated Hamlet with it. I think it's good enough to express most day to day things in it.

In my agreement with zan Klythe, "What makes you think I have not?" Who bestowed upon you the power to pass judgement on another's understanding of either language forms or Klingon culture? Not the Great and Powerful Okrand, certainly.

I did not say that Kesvirit or Klythe have not read KGT, what I said was once that chapter has been read and fully understood, as well as all the other tlhIngan Hol canon sources on Idiom/metaphor. Then the reader (of those sources) will be an expert in that section of tlhIngan Hol. Once expert level is reached, do as is pleased. I was just trying to inpart to all the people who read this board that until you know how to swim don't jump into the middle of the ocean without a liferaft.

Are you to tell me that a language that spans an entire Empire and then some contains only sixty-six non-literal descriptive phrases and no metaphors whatsoever?

Read the Klingon way, it's full of them.

You gave up after a single attempt at creating a metaphor was unsuccessful. Do not try to impose this failure on the rest of us.

Actually I tried many times, they only had to show me once before I realised that I had yet to reach the skill level needed to do it.

So, in true Klingon fashion I ask you to prove yourselves. If you believe so strongly that you should be able to write metaphors in tlhIngan Hol, do it! Stop telling me you have the right to do it, unless you actually plan to do it! As I said previously: Go ahead and use metaphor's if you wish.
I want to see some of these metaphors that you are fighting so strongly for!

Oh, and Kesvirit, on a personal note, I have been in the KLI for 6 years, and I really don't appriciate being called a cog in someone elses wheel. I find it personally offensive that you would call the whole of the KLI; without whom we would not have had The Klingon Way, Klingon for the Galactic Traveller, The Klingon Hamlet, the Klingon translation of Gilgamesh, the Klingon translation of Much Ado about Nothing and various other works; a simple cog that is just part of some giant plot with Paramount. They have worked tirelessly for over a decade to try and teach Klingon and get the Klingon language out of the geeky box that it was placed. There are many dedicated people in that group, many of which have no intrest in Star Trek, Paramount or rubber foreheads, but still they have worked so that we all have something that no other Sci-Fi show or group has ever had before, and no one has had since.

So, in the future, I ask you to keep your negative comments about other Fan Groups to yourself. This is supposed to be a place to teach, not bash other groups.

[Kesvirit]

posted on 6-18-2003 at 09:49 AM

quoth qurgh
Once, in the past, someone tried to do work with the Klingon language and published a book. That book was "The Secret Fighting Arts of the Warrior Race.". A great book, a very rare book now, and the reason is it rare is because Paramount didn't want it to happen. So they shut it down in the blink of an eye. I personally do not want to be sued by Paramount, hence I stick to the rules.

I am familiar with that particular tale. Martha De Forest's Pacific Warriors group tried to publish Chet Braun's "The Secret Fighting Arts", which used proverbs to help explain the principles of a quasi-Klingon martial art based upon the Chinese Hung Gar. It was an independent production, no copyrighted material was used, and if memory serves (admittedly, a big if) there was a big disclaimer on the front cover. Nevertheless, since bits of the book were written in tlhIngan Hol, Paraborg's law fleet leapt into battle with the war cry: "Intellectual property!" and held a book burning instead of engaging the publisher in a fair fight.

But to my knowlege you are not trying to sell anything, merely hold conversation and exchange correspondance. No currency is changing hands and there is no profit to be made. Unless I am missing something important here, I don't think Paramount would sue you for that, any more than they would attack Klythe for creating metaphors. As in yInqo'na'*, the burden is on the speaker to make themselves understood.

you cannot change or add to the language because doing so renders it useless. When you start making up words, everyone starts making up words. When that happens people make words for things which can already be expressing in Klingon, they start making more nouns, verb, adjectives, number words, etc. And soon it becomes like Klingonaase, a language of bits, scattered all over the part which no one can really use to communicate.

Or it could cause the listener to have to actually think about the true intended meaning behind the word, instead merely uploading data and doing the plug-and-chug in the matter of an automaton. The capacity to distinguish between layers of meaning in spoken communication is what separates the -pu' from the -mey. Be a Klingon, not a qaryop**!

Is Latin a code? No, it's a language, it hasn't been changed in years.

No, it's a language that hasn't been used in many years, with the possible exception of a small group of specialists: scientists, literary historians, and seminary students. To my knowlege none have sought to change it, merely to apply it, and then usually only in small bits and pieces. The latter have its usage dictated to them in a way intended to discourage changing it at all in order to protect the status quo. (Hmmm. Perhaps I smell a parallel after all.)

You have to look back in history. Natural languages have often been controled by a group or body of people. Even English is controled in that way.

There is a difference between legal control and social custom. The former is more codified and immediate, and rules and conditions can change swiftly. Social custom is much harder to enforce on the scale of law and its changes are slower in coming, but ultimately it is more powerful and its changes binding.

By whom is English controlled? To my knowledge it has no equivalent of the Academie Francaise, the governmental institution that attempts to codify and enforce its official standards of the French language. In England, perhaps the standards set by the Oxford University Press or the BBC for internal usage comprise some sort of collective if unspoken standard followed due to the prestige or snobbery factor. What does the US have? How about Canada? Or South Africa, or Hong Kong, or anywhere else that English serves as either a national language or lingua franca? With both increased globalization and concentration of the English language as we know it is in for a wild ride. Who will be controlling it then?

Yes, I can make up new words and slang, since I am a natural speaker, but those words will not be in a dictionary, and for the most part saying, "Flooby looby gratsive suphonger" means nothing, no matter how much I protest that the words mean, "I like dancing on a cliff with a carrot on the my head." If it's not in the dictionary, then people will say I'm mad.

Unless perhaps you are John Cleese, in which "dancing on a cliff with a carrot on my head" may become part of the vernacular, or (to bring this arguement back to Trek, albeit in a roundabout way) Richard O'Brien, in which case it may become a dance craze ala "The Time Warp". These are both examples of how controlled media work their way into popular cultural without the permission of their creators (who I suspect are pleased) or the corporate owners and/or merchandisers (who I suspect are not).

Is C/C++ a code? No, it's a language, it is controled by a group of people and the OS you are using to read this post works because of that.

I would call it a code, but that is beside the point. Call it a language if you like. The authors of C/C++ (Karnigan and Ritchie?) wrote and published the how-to on syntax and commands, but unlike Okrand and Paraborg they did not try to obtain the rights to every expression of the C program user's thoughts expressed in the C language.

Okrand, as the creator of the language, can create slang and idioms because he made it. Just as Linux is created a run by a group people, and they decide what things go into it, and, just like Linux, if you have a request for a specfic word of phrase, you can always take that request to Okrand. This has happened many times.

As if Thought Master Okrand would deign to grant an audience to an "ignorant mass" such as myself... :rolleyes:
Your analogy is a flawed one. Linux is open source. Once you have paid any relevant fees, under the GNU General Public License the source code is yours to use and modify however you like. Once you have paid your "reg fees" to Paramount in the form of exchanging Darsekmey for TKD or other "source" materials, you may not use or modify the content according to your own needs, but must continue to follow stricly proscribed rules. You are not buying a tool, you are renting someone else's ideology. The contract is set in diamond and will last for 1.8 billion years (until it breaks down into graphite) or until Paraborg burns itself out, whichever comes first.

Anyone else care to invoke the Cathedral and the Bazaar? Paraborg locks itelf up tighly behind the dogmatic doors of the Cathedral through which no unauthorized thought may enter. Linux and language enthusiasts are downtown at the Bazaar, trading ideas, techniques, and approaches. I prefer the company of the thought-traders at the Bazaar over the unquestioning acolytes holed up in the Cathedral reciting preaproved, pre-programmed canon.

I can never understand why people feel like they always have to expand tlhIngan Hol, they have translated Hamlet with it.

Though I have yet to read the whole translation, I believe that a lot is lost in the translation. The original text is quite archaic by the standards of any contemporary English (that I know of) spoken today. I have spent many, many hours in assisting native English speakers to translate the phrases therein and understand the meanings behind them. And so much of Hamlet consists of similie, metaphor, and idiom... *shudder* No wonder the tlhIngan translation tends to read like a repair manual.

quoth Kesvirit In my agreement with zan Klythe, "What makes you think I have not (read Klingon for the Galactic Traveller)?" Who bestowed upon you the power to pass judgement on another's understanding of either language forms or Klingon culture? Not the Great and Powerful Okrand, certainly.

quoth qurgh I did not say that Kesvirit or Klythe have not read KGT, what I said was once that chapter has been read and fully understood, as well as all the other tlhIngan Hol canon sources on Idiom/metaphor. Then the reader (of those sources) will be an expert in that section of tlhIngan Hol. Once expert level is reached, do as is pleased. I was just trying to inpart to all the people who read this board that until you know how to swim don't jump into the middle of the ocean without a liferaft.

You also did not answer my question. Who aside from Okrand, who is not here to administer the water survival test, is entitled or authorized to evaluate another's expertise? I ask this in all seriousness. Is there some sort of written exam of advancement, or are members promoted according to their services to the organization, or by passing a Klingon-style trial-by-ordeal, or...?

On a less serious note, I find it rather ironic that zan Krankor, whose translations I have questioned from time to time, is exempt from the procrustean bed of canon Hol into which you, he, and whoever else would strap the rest of us.

quoth Kesvirit Are you to tell me that a language that spans an entire Empire and then some contains only sixty-six non-literal descriptive phrases and no metaphors whatsoever?

quoth qurgh Read the Klingon way, it's full of them.

Again, what makes you think I have not? The sole source you gave was KGT, so it was that to which I responded.

So, in true Klingon fashion I ask you to prove yourselves. If you believe so strongly that you should be able to write metaphors in tlhIngan Hol, do it! Stop telling me you have the right to do it, unless you actually plan to do it! As I said previously: Go ahead and use metaphor's if you wish
I want to see some of these metaphors that you are fighting so strongly for!

I would like accept your challenge and had intended to issue it myself in an earlier post. Unfortunately, most of my writings involving the Hol (along with my data sets, equipment, books, extra shoes, my good thesaurus...) are in what I hope is a safe storage place elsewhere as a result of the winter floods after which I am still cleaning up. I suspect that most of the metaphors you wish to see are actually idioms; I did not keep count. All I have on my HD is an unfinished list. And as you pointed out in the top translation request post, they make little sense when not presented in context.

(Besides, do you really want to wade through some of my unfinished fics? Given our frequent disagreements on canon and its place in the Trekiverse and RL, I doubt you would want to go anywhere near them, let alone enjoy what you read.)

Oh, and Kesvirit, on a personal note, I have been in the KLI for 6 years, and I really don't appriciate being called a cog in someone elses wheel. *** a simple cog that is just part of some giant plot with Paramount.

Then what metaphor would you have me use to get my point across? Wait, metaphors are forbidden. Shall I just say that I find it repugnant that it is abusing the spirit of the 503©, originally intended to help charitable organizations get the maximum amount of money to those who need it most without the govenment helping itself to a huge cut? All for the purpose of funding and promoting fan activies that have little in the form of real life applications or benefit, by selling their hearts and minds (oops, another metaphor -- please forgive me, old habits die hard) to Paramount?

There are many dedicated people in that group, many of which have no intrest in Star Trek,... but still they have worked so that we all have something that no other Sci-Fi show or group has ever had before, and no one has had since.

Tolkien's followers and others who hold dual citizenship in Middle Earth have been doing it since long before the Trek franchise hit the air.

So, in the future, I ask you to keep your negative comments about other Fan Groups to yourself. This is supposed to be a place to teach, not bash other groups.

And in the future, I would ask you to ease up on your Hol-ier-than-thou stance. If you keep falling back on "because Marc said so" as your primary defense and rationale, people are more likely to tune you out instead of asking to hear whatever wisdom you may have to offer.

I do not "bash" the entirity of the KLI. I criticise its methods and doctrine. Its goals are another matter. I for one would like to teach people to examine their own motivations, see how their actions reflect their values and how they effect those around them, and to think for themselves. A warrior who mindlessly follows orders quickly becomes Federate phaser fodder, and never has another chance. You have a fine mind, qurgh. Don't let it be co-opted by others whose bottom line is made of solid latinum.

 - Kesvirit

(In reading this through to edit before before posting, I found multiple metaphors and idioms that I did not mark as such. I left them in to better make my point and to answer in kind the metaphors that qurgh looks down upon but nevertheless used. They are hard to avoid, and language is much richer and more flexible

(Moderator's note: The rest of this post and thread were eaten by hungry spiderbots.)