Some Fun...

[Siblesz]

Earthlings: Ugly Bags of Mostly Water

Here are a few of the things more nerdy than dedicating your life to studying the Klingon language:

• Being mistaken for The Simpsons' Comic Book Guy.
  
• A "Magic: The Gathering" marathon.
  
• Blogging obsessively about how much you're kicking ****** in your fantasy chess league.

Not surprisingly, it's a pretty short list.

However, let's add just one more entry: Making a documentary about people who study the Klingon language. Such is the riveting topic of "Earthlings: Ugly Bags of Mostly Water."

The film starts with some words from Marc Okrand, who created the Klingon language for "Star Trek III" and seems both delighted and amazed that his linguistic experiment has gotten out of the lab and seized the imagination and ample free time of nerds everywhere. At the annual meeting of the Klingon Language Institute, we meet a cross-section of the language's adherents:

• A Klingon warrior who outlines how he and his Klingon friends like to go to restaurants and order their meals in Klingon. All I could think about was that poor, poor, hung-over waitress. One just hopes the Klingons didn't tip in darseks.
  
  
• A parent who spoke only in Klingon to his child for years. In what seems to be a nod to Social Services, the movie makes a point of interviewing the kid to demonstrate that he appears to have emerged from his ordeal relatively (and miraculously) unscathed. Until dating age rolls around, that is.
  
  
• A guy who writes his notes at work in Klingon and admires the language's utter abandonment of social graces. His pet peeve: people who say "good morning." His favorite topic: his proficiency at paintball. The next time I have my head on my desk thinking that the social dynamics at my day job can't get any weirder, I'll just think of this guy.
  
  
• Michael Dorn -- known to Trekkies everywhere as "Hey Worf! WORF! Look over here, Worf!" -- talking about Klingon language, Klingon culture and Klingon sex. Dorn, like many other once-respectable actors dropped into the needy, sleeve-grabbing vortex of the Sci Fi fandom circuit, seems a bit a uncertain about the whole phenomenon. He labels the Klingon Language Institute's attempt to translate the works of Shakespeare into Klingon as "misguided," an offhand comment on his part that probably resulted in most of the members of the KLI being on a week-long suicide watch.

You'd think there'd be ample opportunity to mock this curious assemblage, but director Alexandre O. Philippe passes up this opportunity and instead focuses on two things:

1.) Linguistics, social dynamics and how studying a "constructed language" like Klingon can provide insights into our own. Translation: BORING!

2.) Lamps. Given that the KLI's interplanetary gala seems to have been held in a motel off the interstate somewhere, Philippe takes the only visual prop available to him -- lamps -- and uses them the frame the film in otherworldly ways. Which helps explain why I spent so much time feeling like I was lost in space.

Source: http://www.mrcranky.com/movies/earthlings.html


tlhIngan maH! :p

[Marshal Qin]

odd. Didn't Tolkien design an Elf language? and isnt there a Dwarf language too? (inlcuding runic alphabet for both) How many fantsay languages are there now?

[Siblesz]

How many fantsay languages are there now?

Too many. :p

Seriously... who in this odd planet of ours is stupid enough to dedicate large amounts of free time to learning a fantasy language that only 4 people in the whole world can speak fluently? ...and people say I have no life! HAH! :lol

[the Black Prince]

although tolkien created at least 5 languages for LOTR (Quenya, Sindarin, Kazad, Rohirric and the Black Speach) only 2 of them (the 2 elvish languages) are given enough words phrases, and linguistical details in tolkiens writings to actually be spoken to some degree of fluency without endlessly quoting LOTR. the other 3 languages merely contain a few words or phrases here and there are, and our by no means complete. i beleive tolkien only ever wrote 4 lines and a handfull of other words in the black speach, being those famous lines
argz narz durbatulak, argz narz gimpatul, argz narz thrackatulak, arg bessez-isshi krimpatul. (sp?)
kazad, the dwarish language was a secret tongue known only to the dwarves, and apart from places names (Khazad-dum) and dwarven battle cries khazad barak! barak ai menu! its never used.
the rohirrim's language on the otrher hand, is modeled extensivly on old english/saxon with elven influences in it, and hardly constitutes a new language. the word rohan, which in westron (english/common tongue) means horselord means knight in quenya.

to qin, while dwarvish does use a runic system, tolkien never composed one. the elven tongues use a rounded curly script called tengwar, more like an alphabet than runic symbols.


klingon on the other hand has gone way way way further than this. while there is enough quenya lexicon to speak the language fluently, and you can even downloasd fonts for the elvish script, tengwar, it tends to be used within the lotr fan community, it certainly doesn't have dedicated writers and researchers actually adding dfinishing touches to the language to make it modern and speakable inthe real world, although klingon does have the advantage of containing words for more modern things like computers which quenya lacks. more scary perhaps is that the klingon language institute have gone so far as to publish dictionaries (saw one in the library once) and oher ridiculous stuff. while it does ensure the consistancy of the language within future star trek programs/films, we had elven language experts translating for LOTR, without all this added nonsense.

[wilpuri]

Originally posted by Siblesz@Apr 7 2005, 07:42 AM
Too many. :p

Seriously... who in this odd planet of ours is stupid enough to dedicate large amounts of free time to learning a fantasy language that only 4 people in the whole world can speak fluently? ...and people say I have no life! HAH! :lol

I think creating a language must be very rewarding, I remember as a kid my friend and I created various different 'secret' alphabets, which we used to write messages. We would have code book, which we would use to decypher the writing. Quite fun actually. As for learning an 'artificial' language, it could be interesting, but very hard and time-consuming I would assume. I think the creating bit is more fun.

[Manji]

Siba: It's an intelligent exercise mate. Like Wilpuri, as a kid I was creating secret codes and runic alphabets and such and I even learned *gasp!* a bit of Noldorin..... Now, dressing up as a Klingon or whatever and devoting your life to enacting Start Trek Episodes while discarding important stuff, now that's not healthy....

[Niles Crane]

Oh wow thanks for making me feel like a geek for when I tried to learn Sindarin.

I even copied out the Dwarven runic alphabet so as I could write with it. Pretty damn successful in the end anyway.

[the Black Prince]

Noldorin is Quenya manji, tolkien changed the name eventually, even though it is the language spoken by the Noldor or High elves, also known as the exiles...

oh damn, maybe i know too much about this

Namarie!!

(oops now i'm revealing i too have learnt some sindarin and quenya :blush )

[Dr Zoidberg]

Are you 32 and still single?

Are you comfortable living in your parents basement?

Has the only woman you've ever held being printed on a 'Magic :the Gathering' card?

Do you feel that nobody really accepts that you are in fact the worlds most hardened warrior?

If you answered yes to the above questions then:

LEARN KLINGON!

And show the world how tough you really are.

(Quad-focal lenses and inflatable doll sold seperately)

[Manji]

TBP: make that Namarië.... :p
I known what Noldorin is Quenya.... :p

[Belisarius]

I am in no way a geek, or nerd. But I'd love to learn elvish its a very lovely poetic language. Sib stop trying to make people look like nerds you evil evil man! *tongue*

[Siblesz]

Oh for God's sake... i also enjoy the novelty of knowing a language that only a few people speak where i live... (spanish) But to learn a fantasy language is... well... it's completely useless. When will you meet a person that speaks elvish or klingon or any of that crap? Once in your life? maybe twice. Or maybe a dozen times if you go to those star trek meetings. Do you see my point? Learning languages is rewarding and an "intelligent activity". Learning Klingon is futile.

[Mordhak]

If you really want to learn a flowing and poetic language and waste precious hours of your lifetime, study a human language, for god's sake! What's the point of learning Klingon... my goodness :rolleyes

It's so ridiculous that one can only laugh at it. :grin

[Belisarius]

Well I was never a trekkie, and couldn’t give a rat’s arse about Klingon, but since I am a LOTR fan and like elvish. I would have to say that there is nothing wrong with learning a language that is not used. What’s wrong with a person learning something just for the fun of it, intellectual pursuits don’t have to be practical, I mean if I was to say poetry was useless many people would be up in arms, truth is it isn’t because it is a means of creative expression. Same as art and literature, granted there is "practical literature and art, but that’s not the point. The point is that different people like to be individualistic by learning something that no one knows, or creating something no one has created. In some people this has been expressed in such a way as to give us many technological and philosophical achievements which are valued. In others, useless gobshite.

So any intellectual pursuit should not be condemned because it’s the same as some chavish yobs calling someone a nerd just because they read, or are good at school etc. Since poetry and art are accepted as creative activities, and learning languages is intellectual no one should judge how others choose to express themselves.

Ps, I bet I’m the only one here who can read and write in Maltese!

[Manji]

Well, me and the wife have learned enough elvish so we can "code talk" in front of people without them understanding. It can be useful :p

[Lady_Dragoon]

Is learning Klingon/Elvish/whatever a nerdy pursuit? Yes. Is that a bad thing? Not necessarily. In fact, speaking as a nerd, in some circles it could be considered a mark of honor. See, there are casual nerds (cool people with one or two nerdy hobbies), and there are true, dyed-in-the-wool nerds (people for whom memorizing X-Wing stats comes much, much more naturally than social interaction). There comes a point in (almost) every true nerd's life when they come face-to-face their status as a nerd, realizes that they will never be "cool", and embrace their destiny as a nerd. At that point, their social energy is diverted from attempting to be "cool", to attempting to attain transcendant nerdity and thus the everlasting adoration/envy of their nerd-peers.

But it is a perpetual uphill battle, for there is always someone more hardcore than you. At that point, a working knowledge of Klingon could be your secret weapon *wink*

[morble]

heh, Lady Dragoon, shouldn't that be "transcendant nerdility"? As in, nerd nobility?

Anyway, there's about 500 languages in the world right now that are on the verge of extinction due to lack of native speakers. Included in this number is Aramaic, Jesus' native tongue. Esperanto is a manufactured language, and was for a number of years taken quite seriously as a potential global language. As for learning a language that no one speaks, nobody pooh-poohs learning Latin, do they?

So, if some people want to spend their time creating a language and adding to its lexicon, what the heck, it's harmless, and might even be interesting and educational.