Do you speak Klingon?

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/West/05/10/offbeat.klingon.interpreter/index.html
from WinCustomize Forums
PORTLAND, Oregon (AP) -- Position Available: Interpreter, must be fluent in Klingon.

The language created for the "Star Trek" TV series and movies is one of about 55 needed by the office that treats mental health patients in metropolitan Multnomah County. . . .

"There are some cases where we've had mental health patients where this was all they would speak," said the county's purchasing administrator, Franna Hathaway.

County officials said that obligates them to respond with a Klingon-English interpreter, putting the language of starship Enterprise officer Worf and other Klingon characters on a par with common languages such as Russian and Vietnamese, and less common tongues including Dari and Tongan.
9,227 views 17 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Ka'pla !!

Now I've heard it all....

Thanks Frog.
Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top
How assinine can things get? 2 or 3 hundred sessions of shock therapy will have them speaking english fluently. Regardless of their native tongue.
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Reply #8 from WinCustomize Forums Top
"Hab SoSlI' Quch!" - Your mother has a smooth forehead!
taken from http://www.kli.org/tlh/phrases.html
Reply #9 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Did you know, several years ago, two MIT graduates began a campaign to translate the bible into Klingon? Tell me, why would ANYONE waste their time on such pursuits? Isn't that blasphemy?

Anyway, just thought I'd toss that out there..
Reply #10 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Pesonally, I see nothing wrong with that. Its a creative, philological endeavour, much like the serious pursuits of amatuer and professional philologists and linguists who explore and document JRR Tolkien's various invented languages. In can be a useful exercise and an enthusiastic starting point for those who enter that field of study.

There's a real passion for exploring these things. I for one was entranced by Tolkien's languages and alphabets. It's the same curiosity that, as a teen, got me into computer programming, namely the curiosity and structure of computer languages. There's just something I find fascinating about language, syntax, and structure.
Reply #11 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Blasphemy to translate the Bible into Klingon? No more so than the Esperanto version - both artificially created languages.

But it's got me wondering, how does one say "Turn the other cheek" in Klingon?
Reply #12 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Dagwud, I'm not sure, but then I remember reading that there were certain challenges when translating the Bible to Klingon, in that there were certain some words that weren't intentially created (I don't recall which, but perhaps, things like peace or surrender) because Klingons most likely wouldn't have simple root-words to represent such concepts.

This is sort of the opposite of the Eskimos, in which, IIRC, they have many different words for snow, each representing a type of snow, since snow is such a large factor in their lives.

Translating stuff into Tolkien's languages is more problematic than Klingon, The languages have changed and morphed over time due to Tolkien's tinkering and he's not around to give the final say, and while there's quite a bit to the vocabulary it is still sorely lacking. Philologist/enthusiasts are hesitant to make something up to fill a gap, so they either work around it using other words to express a concept that would normally be one word, or they look to Tolkien's previous and abandoned versions of root-words to find something that might be appropriate. This at least gives a bit of more legitimacy than pulling a word out of the air, wholesale.
Reply #13 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Chris, I think the Klingons would have words for peace and surrender, as in...

"There will be no peace until you surrender or are destroyed!"

Reply #15 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Not necessarily. It depends on your point of view. Some folks are fascinated by invented languages. It may seem silly to you to spend an inordinate amount of time on something like that, but then you could say its just as silly and geeky to spend an inordinate amount of time creating skins. Both are done for pleasure, creativity and a sense of accomplishment.
Reply #16 from WinCustomize Forums Top
They actually put it in the budget as a joke. It won't cost the taxpayers anything unless a translator is actually required. The AP service took the original story from the Oregonian and did a little editing to make it seem worse than it was.

Link to original Oregonian Story:
http://www.oregonlive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news/105256813916000.xml?oregonian?lcg
Reply #17 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Ok, so having looked at the "real" story...

Are they saying that Star Trek fans belong in a mental health clinic?

I'm going to cover my head with my jacket and run for cover now.