Degrees of canon?

[K'Gor tai Reshtarc]

I was unaware of there being two languages. I need all the help I can get!!

[Klythe]

    As far as klingonaase this thread covers most of what is known,  Kesvirit as done a lot of research, and there wasn't all that much developed of that language in the first place.   It's grammar and morphology are defined only by what limited context we have in example texts.

Okrand: The so-called dialects might be considered seperate languages.

voraq:  If Okrand is not suggesting that klingonaase could (or should) be considered a "so-called dialect" I don't know what he means.

    He probably means that there are other dialects that are barely inteligible (while klingonaase is wholely unintelligible, there have been no overlaps or cognates shared between the two languages).   He's talking about dialects such as Middle and OldEnglish.   Most of us have quite a bit uf difficultly reading Beowulf in it's orginal form.   Heck, a lot of school kids have trouble with Shakespeare.   Both languages are dialects of English, we can read and understand them if we slow down and have a couple (or a lot of) of footnotes.  Even modern dialects of English such as Glaswegian English or Singapore English may be mutually untintelligible.

    As an ameture linguist myself, I can confidently say the main point he was making was that there is no linguistic line-in-the-sand to say what is a language and what is a dialect of a language.   Okran is paraphrasing Max Weinreich's observation that "A language is a dialect with an army and a navy".

[voraq]

That makes sense.  I have not thought of the many different types of English.  I do think that the statement by Okrand can also mean that he is recognising tlhIngan Hol as the "official language" but he will not restrict the Klingon languages to what he created.

[Klythe]

    As far as I understand, he doesn't have the power to say one way or another.   Technically his license lets him define anything he wants to about tlhIngan Hol.   Arguably anything he says about Klingon culture, behaviour, biology, oreinteering/navigation or anything else is not canon.  Only the acutaul vocabulary, grammar, morphology, orthography and anything else that describes the language is canon.  Anything he describes about how the language is used or the people that use the language should probably be treated as non-canon speculation.   To my knowledge Paramount has enforced this destinction only once, noting that anything Okrand has said about "Maltz" is not canon, going so far to say that Maltz did not turn and is not serving Okarnd as a lingusistic informant.

    Given that most everything Okrand has presented have reportedly come from "Maltz"...   There is some reason to doubt anything he's ever said...

[ter'eS]

    As far as I understand, he doesn't have the power to say one way or another.   Technically his license lets him define anything he wants to about tlhIngan Hol.

Strictly speaking, he doesn't even have this power.  Paramount is the real owner of the license to tlhIngan Hol.
Whatever 'power' Okrand has technically derives from the fact that so far he's the only person who's been
permitted to produce licensed product for Paramount, at least to the level of detail of the Klingon Dictionary.
 My own circle of tlhIngan Hol speakers has decided to adopt Okrand as the only source of legitimate
canon mainly for pragmatic reasons.

Arguably anything he says about Klingon culture, behaviour, biology, oreinteering/navigation or anything else is not canon.  Only the acutaul vocabulary, grammar, morphology, orthography and anything else that describes the language is canon.  Anything he describes about how the language is used or the people that use the language should probably be treated as non-canon speculation.

Probably true, but there is some overlap, as when he tries to explain an unfamilliar word by describing the
cultural context it's used in.

To my knowledge Paramount has enforced this destinction only once, noting that anything Okrand has said about "Maltz" is not canon, going so far to say that Maltz did not turn and is not serving Okarnd as a lingusistic informant.

This I have not heard...

Given that most everything Okrand has presented have reportedly come from "Maltz"...   There is some reason to doubt anything he's ever said...

As I said, my own circle of tlhIngan Hol speakers (mostly the Klingon Language Institute - I am beginning
to realize there are many other 'schools' of opinion besides this one!) decided long ago to adopt Okrand as
our only source of canon.  We did this purely for pragmatic reasons, to keep tlhIngan Hol from
devolving into a myriad of mutually unintelligible dialects.  Unlike natural-language communities, our
community is small, geographically scattered, and lacking a pool of native language speakers to be
the final judges of 'correct usage'.  If the goal was to have a world-wide (!) language that would
be mutually understandable by everyone who used it, it always seemed logical to me to set a
standard, and it seemed logical that the standard would be the language's creator, Marc Okrand.
(Paramount's various independent offerings in the form of phrases in the TV shows or games we
dismissed because they couldn't be understood in the context of the 'standard' Okrandian
language - maybe they're dialects.).

-- ter'eS

[El Payaso Malo]

Probably true, but there is some overlap, as when he tries to explain an unfamilliar word by describing the
cultural context it's used in.

I noticed that a lot of Klingon for the Galactic Traveler is attempting to fit the inexcusably poor usage the shows display. When writers just make up a word (ghIqtal) or don't pay attention to grammar ("wIj jup" said a Klingon in "Blood Oath"), Okrand describes these travesties as archaic and/or used only in special occasions or by certain people. To have an entire language created and then not use it seems like a waste to me. It wouldn't have been difficult to have at least one guy on the set who at least knows basic grammar. ghuy', the KLI even offered to do it for free, so the writers have no excuse. How long does a fax take? It HURT to hear Hoshi Sato say words like loDHom ("boy") and SonchIy ("death ritual for a leader") to describe to a Klingon who Starfleet are. Not that the writers are bad, just lazy. Anyone even passingly familiar with the basics of Klingon winced when they heard characters say SoS jIH batlh SoH to mean "Mother, I honor you." Two minutes with the dictionary would have resulted in the correct SoS qaquvmoH, instead of the You are honor a mother's viewing screen, that confused us.
 

Perhaps I got a little off topic... 

[qurgh_]

To my knowledge Paramount has enforced this destinction only once, noting that anything Okrand has said about "Maltz" is not canon, going so far to say that Maltz did not turn and is not serving Okarnd as a lingusistic informant.

What's your source for this comment? I've never heard anything from Paramount about this.

[Klythe]

    Well, if you asked me five years ago when I made the comment I might have been able to back it up...   Now, I can't find where I read it, it could have been just a little yank on his chain to remind every one who really owns the language(It was written as a work for hire, which gives the rights to the ones paying the bills), then taken down before it propagated through fandom...  It's clear that Okrand adjusts tlhIngan Hol to accommodate what appears on screen, while little attempt is made to correct the shows to Okrand's definition of the language. 

   Also it is contradicted by canon, as Hoshi ends up learning and speaking Klingon without a Universal Translator, a century before Maltz's capture, so the data had to have been available over a century before Maltz was taken prisonner.

    Honestly, the notion that the Federation would have contact with the Klingon Empire for over century (and contact with Vulcans and other species that would have had contact with the Klingons far longer) before anyone was able to find out the basics of the language, is frankly absurd at face value. 

[qoSagh]

Since the language was created for ST-III, which was the only time we ever saw Maltz, and it was based on guttural uttering from ST-I, I would say that the federation had at least the basics prior to Matlz's capture. I always took it to mean that Maltz was providing advanced information.

Now I remember hearing that statement from Paraborg also that Maltz was not working for Okrand. However in the true spirit of revisionist history so often employed by TPTB, I took that to mean that he was no longer working in that capacity. After all this was during the TOS time period and Trek had largely moved into the TNG Time Period until Enterprise. Perhaps there was some off screen (or off book) change in that status.