Talk:Klingon language/Archive 1
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Why can't these people devote their time to curing cancer?
Instead of coming up with and learning this garabage? Oh and, Romulans rule!
-G
Copyright
About the claimed copyright on the Klingon language: How is this possible? Can a language independent of any description of the language constitute a literary work under US or European copyright law? Has this been tested in any court of law? --Damian Yerrick
- Damian, I don't know. The only reference I can dig up as to its copyrighted nature is http://higbee.cots.net/~holtej/klingon/faq.htm#2.12, which explain that Paramount claims copyright to the language. I doubt very much it's been tested in a court of law, but from what little I know of copyright law I suspect they might be able to - the alphabet, vocabulary, pronounciation, grammar, and so on of a language sound like a "creative work" to me, and they created it (or paid somebody else to). Of course, IANAL. --Robert Merkel
Yes, Paramount does indeed own a copyright to the Klingon language. This basically means that if anyone were to publish a book with the Klingon language in it, they would have to get permission and pay royalties to Paramount. An artificial language is a creative work unless specified that it is in the public domain. In the long term, it might have been gained more publicity for Paramount if they had not copyrighted the language, but you know how big companies are... --CSS
How can an artificial language be a protected creative work under United States copyright law? Title 17, United States Code, Section 102, defines the scope of United States copyright law, limiting copyrightable works to "literary works; musical works, including any accompanying words; dramatic works, including any accompanying music; pantomimes and choreographic works; pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works; motion pictures and other audiovisual works; sound recordings; and architectural works." I don't see "artificial languages." Paramount could claim that because the dictionary is a literary work, the language that it describes is copyrighted. However, the Klingon language is a system of communication, and according to the same section of US law: "In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work" (emphasis added by DY). How are made-up words different from made-up telephone numbers, which are uncopyrightable under Feist v. Rural|Feist v. Rural]]?
Can you point me to a link where a judge has ruled that the designer of an artificial language has the exclusive right to publish descriptions of the language or works written in the language? If not, "claims" in the parent remains correct. --Damian Yerrick
I don't know, it seems like a pretty valid claim to me, at least in the spirit of copyright law if not the letter. A conlang is generally intended as a work of art and creative expression. It makes sense to me. A lot of work goes into creating languages like this. I think it's only fair that the end result is copyright-protected (even if, as in this case, the copyright would fall to Paramount rather than Okrand, due to rules about works on commission). -Branddobbe
Yes, Paramount claims copyright on the language itself, which is probably just hot air. They do, however, have a perfectly valid copyright in all the published source materials--the dictionary, the language description, and so on. You probably could publish your own book on the language if you carefully avoided using any of the actual text from any of their books. They might also claim a trademark on the name "Klingon", but even that would be a stretch, especially after JCB tried doing that with "Loglan" and failed (yes, there are legal precedents on artificial languages). --LDC
- I think the precident of programing languages would be relevant. One could copyright or patent BASIC, but not a program or other work written with it. IANAL, TINLA
Klingon Greeting
On the main page is "The typical greeting in Klingon literally translates into English as "I'm speaking to you, deal with it."" Unfortunately, that is incorrect. The literal definition of the Klingon Greeting (nuqneH) is "What do you want?" Go look it up.
- Done a quick web search to confirm. Put into article. The Anome
"S" and "tlh"
Moved from the article: (The value of "S" and "tlh" is not certain; can someone confirm or correct?)
--cprompt 07:35, 28 Jan 2004 (UTC)
James Doohan
This article contends that Doohan is a linguist and came up with Vulcan and Klingon dialogue for ST-TMP. If true, surely there should be at least passing reference to this here? Quill 09:08, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)
- I'm really not sure how much credence to give to this claim. Nevertheless, James Doohan was certainly skilled with dialects and accents, which I believe is why he made up some phrases for the Klingons and the Vulcans on Star Trek to say. thefamouseccles 09:56, 05 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- A linguist is not somebody who know a lot of languages or dialects, but somebody who knows a lot about language in general. If you study linguistics at university, the purpose is not to learn lots of languages but what languages have in common or what sets them apart, how they came to be as they are, what they might become, how they influence and are influenced by each other and how language is stored and computed in the brain. Doohan was not a linguist but certainly was good with accents and dialects of English. --Kaleissin 14:25:19, 2005-08-19 (UTC), who incidentally is a linguist
Detailed reading will bring out that Doohan created specifically the Klingon words spoken by Mark Lenard as the Klingon Commander in Star Trek the Motion Picture. This included things like >cha'< and other things you can transcribe if you like. Marc Okrand wisely used ALL of it when he developed the full language... so Doohan only created the "style" by the few words he developed. Okrand is responsible for 99.9% of it... but indeed Doohan did get the ball rolling. The Vulcan issue is different. Originally the Vulcan scenes were scripted in Vulcan (devised by Doohan, we're told)... but then they decided to not use subtitles, so the actors instead spoke stilted English. Then they changed their mind again: so now similar sounding 'new' Vulcan words were fitted to the actor's lip movements from speaking English. So, I don't think Doohan's original Vulcan made it in, however he probably assisted in devising the 'new'. He was a dialect and accent expert. But he definitely did precede Okrand on beginning Klingon. --Sturmde 03:46, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
Klingon language question
How do you say "it could be" in Klingon? For example "you could be an officer"? "You are an officer" is yaS SoH, and "you can be an officer" is, I think, yaS SoHlaH, but how would I write it in the conditional? DuH is apparently a verb meaning "to be possible", but how is it used with a sentence as the subject? For example, is "it is possible that you are an officer" yaS SoH 'e' DuH? — JIP | Talk 07:14, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
- That's a good question... but I think you'd just translate it yaS SoHlaH. For "You could be an officer", I think you'd have to resort to an adverb: chaq yaS SoHlaH "perhaps you can be an officer". *yaS SoH 'e' DuH is impossible, because DuH cannot take an object, and 'e' is by its very nature an object pronoun. thefamouseccles 01:51, 11 Oct 2005 (UTC)
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- But is yaS SoHlaH grammatical? Is it canonical to use verb suffixes when using the prefix trick?
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- That's not the prefix trick. And there have been other canon uses of verb suffixes on a pronoun. tlhIngan SoH'a'? (Are you a Klingon?) is allowed, so I see no reason that yaS SoHlaH to be ruled out. So you could say yaS SoHlaH'a'? for "Can you be an officer?", that seems to have to same meaning as "Could you be an officer?" to me. - qurgh
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Extent?
I'd like to see some discussion of whether Klingon is a real language or not - Did its creators come up with a full vocabulary and grammar, or is it just a rough outline? -Dtcdthingy 21:21, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
- Why would we need to discuss that? The article seems fairly clear about it, including noting that it had been used to translate Shakespeare and Gilgamash.--Prosfilaes 03:19, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
ISO 631 code
It's listed as 'tlh' but the wikipedia article does not give tlh as the code for Klingon. In fact, tlh does not appear to exist... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.178.110.53 (talk • contribs) 07:16, 21 October 2005.
- It's not ISO 631, ISO 639; and I don't know what list you're looking at, but it does indeed exist if you check Wikipedia's list or the official list.--Prosfilaes 13:42, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
Letters used in Klingon words
How can toDsaH be a Klingon word? The letter s is not listed in the phonology section. 193.171.121.30 14:02, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
This is now fixed; it should be toDSaH. 68.80.152.28 06:05, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
Stress in Klingon vowels.
How is vowel stress handled in Klingon? Is this something that should be addressed? --Funkmaster 801 07:14, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
- The info is at Klingonska Akademien; I will add it. -Alpha Omicron 21:16, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
The Name Worf when Klingon has no f sound?
How can Worf be a Klingon name when Klingon does not have an F sound? Is this dialectal Klingon? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.210.229.96 (talk • contribs) 27 October 2006.
- The name "Worf" was created before Paramount/Okrand have developped Klingon. Also many other names like Kruge, Grilka, B'Ellana, Kahless, etc. are not valid words in the Klingon language. They were later "retranscribed" into the Klingon syllable system. Thus, Worf becomes wo'rIv, Grilka ghIrIlqa' and Kruge Qugh. For B'Ellana there's not standard spelling (yet), as far as I know. — N-true 21:22, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
Trivia
Can somebody add that the characters in Daddy Long Legs used this language? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 58.168.220.193 (talk) 02:57, 22 December 2006 (UTC).
