[Ads-l] Earliest Use of "Live Long and Prosper"

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Wed Feb 17 00:36:13 UTC 2016


> On Feb 16, 2016, at 5:47 PM, W Brewer <brewerwa at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> I recall from one my Vedic classes, there is an ancient Sanskrit expression
> with an identical sentiment. If there's any interest, I can try to dig it
> up. (BYW, one of my teachers was consulted during the birth of Klingon. He
> gave a talk about his contribution, but none of it ended up in the first
> film. Skt just wasn't guttural enough.)
> 
The inventor...er, discoverer of Klingon, Marc Okrand, was a student of mine at UC Berkeley in 1970 and would likely (as a linguistics major) have also taken Sanskrit there during that time.  The major influence on Klingon, though, was a native Californian language, I believe extinct or nearly so, that he was working on with Mary Haas using materials at the Smithsonian.  I have nothing to contribute on "Live long and prosper" but I can ask our local (emeritus) Sanskritist at Yale.

LH

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