[lg policy] Klingon and other "crazy ideas" in book about invented tongues

Sun Jun 20 20:40:01 UTC 2010

Klingon and other "crazy ideas" in book about invented tongues
By John Timpane

Inquirer Staff Writer

Arika Okrent was studying languages at the University of Chicago. The
languages people use and how they work. The rules, the changes, the
charts. She was in the library, poking around. "And then," says
Okrent, relaxing in her Germantown home recently, "I drifted down to
the shelves with all the books on invented languages. It was a sad
little collection. I felt sorry for it." But something called to her.
Tales of made-up languages and their makers. Esperanto, the most
widely spoken of all; Volapük, once the most popular; Klingon, the
bark of space invaders.  She learned artificial tongues, then wrote
about going to a 2003 Esperanto conference for the American Scholar -
and the seed of a book was planted.

That book is the delightful In the Land of Invented Languages
(published last month in paperback), which tells tales - often sad,
often hilarious - of made-up tongues, Okrent's forays into the realms
of Esperanto, Klingon, and Blissymbolics, and the personalities,
political battles, and fates of linguistic makers-up. Niece of the
journalist Daniel Okrent, Arika met her husband, research linguist
Derrick Higgins, at Chicago. They came east when Higgins got a job at
Educational Testing Service in Princeton. Okrent says, "I did almost
all the research for the book before I had kids" - Leo, 5, and Louisa,
1. "As I got further and further into this world," says Okrent, 40,
"at first, I'd say, 'Look at all these crazy ideas,' but I'd also find
touching clues about the lives of the inventors." Her book "reflects
the humor and the craziness, but also has compassion and
understanding, since I'm a language person myself."

A graveyard of flops

Land of Invented Languages is a history of a "vast graveyard,"
brilliant projects that failed. Some inventors, such as James Cooke
Brown, become famous for other things (he created the board game
Careers), but not for their pet languages. We meet Suzette Haden
Elgin, who in the early 1980s created Láadan, a "woman's language"
("the only language textbook I know of," Okrent writes, "that gives
the word for menstruate in Lesson 1"). We visit the nutty, simpatico
world of Esperanto, and the gestural world of sign languages. There's
the occasional success, as with Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, who fought in the
late 19th and early 20th centuries to resurrect a near-dead priestly
language (Hebrew), and retrofit it for a modern age; it is now the
national language of Israel. Or Lazar Ludwik Zamenhof, who grew up in
the 1860s and '70s in the Russian Empire town of Bialystok, a Babel of
Russian, Polish, German, and Yiddish. He dreamed of a language that
cut through the tangle - and his brainchild, Esperanto, is still the
most widely practiced made-up tongue.

Rage for order has led many to remake language. In the late 1940s,
Austrian engineer Charles Bliss invented Blissymbolics, which he hoped
could become a writing system for all languages, "logical writing for
an illogical world." And Brown invented Loglan, a language that
followed the rules of logic. In one of her saddest stories, Okrent
recounts how Brown fell into a long-running feud over rights, egos,
and direction. A project titled Lojban carried on his vision, despite
him.

Why fix what isn't broken?
Language makes us human. So - why mess with it?

"Well, there is a lot of messiness and ambiguity in language," Okrent
says. "We need it. We need that wiggle room. But if you have an
engineering mind, you'll see irritating things. Why do words have more
than one meaning?" (Look up the word set in Webster's: Its very first
entry lists 25 possible meanings.) "Why do we have irregular verbs?
Why are pronouns in English so messed up?"

Problem is, language probably isn't fixable. "When you try to fix the
world of ideas, fix the meanings of words," Okrent says, "it's hard to
keep it steady. Times change, words change, and besides, we tend to
mean what we mean not by strict rules, but by agreement."

That won't keep people from trying. One motive is the altruistic dream
of tearing down the linguistic walls that divide us. "It's the dream
of oneness," says Okrent, "the idea that if everyone could communicate
with one another, we could eliminate strife - an idea that is,
unfortunately, easy to disprove."

Ludwick invented Esperanto with that idea. Bliss of Blissymbolics grew
up in the many-languaged Austro-Hungarian Empire and dreamed of
unifying the world through a common system. Even the names for these
languages hint at the dream of one, perfect world: Esperanto ("one who
hopes"), Volapük ("world language"), Lingua Komun ("common language"),
Unilingue, Unita, Universel.

"One of my favorite figures in the book," says Okrent, "is Fuishiki
Okamoto, inventor of a language he called Babm. It's a ridiculous
language he claims is perfect, and of course it's not - but he is so
humble and modest, hoping it would be for the benefit of humanity. If
these people worked that hard in pursuit of a failed dream, I figured
they deserved to have their stories told."

All this categorical, logical, engineering mentality - isn't this all
overwhelmingly male? True, Okrent's book begins with Hildegard of
Bingen, the 12th-century nun who created one of the first known
made-up languages. And there's the aforementioned Elgin. But Okrent
doesn't deny that Klingon conventions and logical-language websites
seem to be a guy thing: "Many people have suggested there's an
Asperger's-like, hyper-male mind-set at work, and there may be some
truth to that."

The case for Klingon
Invented languages say much about their times. In the 19th and 20th
centuries, when the world was falling apart, people invented languages
to sew it back together. Today, says Okrent, "it's a much more playful
enterprise, one that reflects the Internet, celebrity-driven popular
culture." Klingon, she says, "is much more in the spirit of the
languages J.R.R. Tolkien invented for his Hobbit and Ring cycle, not
trying to fix language but take it in an artistic direction."

Okrent is, naturally, a certified Klingon speaker, and she tells how
she achieved that high distinction - complete with official pin - in
her book. The Klingon Language Institute is located in Blue Bell,
along with its founder, psychologist and sci-fantasy writer Lawrence
M. Schoen.

"Like many people," Schoen says, "I grew up with Star Trek, but as I
grew older, the role-playing aspect wasn't enough, and I was looking
for something more challenging." In 1992, Schoen pulled together a
scattering of Klingon language groups. It even has a peer-reviewed
journal, HolQeD, Klingon for Linguistics.

Schoen says the language is both "a hobby like any other," and a
"puzzle that appeals to a certain kind of person. It teaches you about
your own language and makes it easier to acquire others, such as Farsi
or Spanish. And people take it in other directions as well - such as a
Klingon translation of Hamlet [one was published in 2000] or the Tao
Te Ching [2008]. It speaks to the human spirit that you would even
take on a challenge like this."

The 17th annual meeting of the Institute - or, in Klingon, the qep'a'
wa'maH SochDIch - will be held at Comfort Inn in Essington July 21-25.

Klingon was invented by linguist Marc Okrand for the Star Trek films.
He created, on purpose, a harsh, guttural, alien language that does
things in ways earthling languages don't. Out of this world.

In the Land of Invented Languages ends with Okrent taking and passing
a test to certify her as a Klingon speaker. Another aspirant, Louise,
doesn't pass - but next year, when she tries again and passes, Okrent
is there to celebrate her. Okrent can see the attraction of an
endeavor that might perplex the Terra-ngon (earthling) world: Klingon
speakers "are doing language for language's sake, art for art's sake.
And like all committed artists, they will do their thing, critics be
damned."

 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

An insult in Klingon, and phrases in other invented languages
Esperanto

La amiko povos ludi en la granda urbo.

The friend can play in the big city.

To listen:http://go.philly.com/esperanto

Klingon (tlhIngan Hol)

Hab SoSlI' Quch!

Your mother has a smooth forehead!

(This is a terrible insult to Klingons and should never be used in
their presence, as death - yours - may result.)

To listen:http://go.philly.com/klingonlang

Loglan

.i mi cuxna lepo mi speni tu

I choose the state of being married to you.

Babm

Y uhqck V.

I request you not to reproach me.

Solresol

Dore mifala dosifare re dosiresi.

I would like a beer and a pastry.

Idiom Neutral

Ekse caval, kes mi volu donar a vo.

Here is the horse I want to give to you.

Find this article at:
http://www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/20100620_Klingon_and_other__quot_crazy_ideas_quot__in_book_about_invented_tongues.html?viewAll=y&c=y

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