h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I once saw someone on TV talking about how elvish is full of little linguistic 'jokes'. I like the idea of being in on the joke and having a good giggle inside at the rest of the world.

Yes Bob, but if you were to inadvertently reveal your inside knowledge of something so arcane and obscure as elvish jokes the rest of the world would point and have a giggle back. Look at the comic book guy in the Simpsons - now there's somebody with an image problem.


And a working knowledge of Klingon.

I tried to learn klingon once, ages ago. I learnt three words in as many months I can't spell any of them but approximatly: nuQneH=what do you want and puQ noy=tired child, don't ask me why I learnt that.

Klingon is quite an established made up language, if you want to learn something useless try Verdurian (www.zompist.com) it has very, very few speakers. And many other similar languages have only one speaker. Learning them is areal waste of time.

I don't actually speak/understand Klingon, but I do sing in Klingon

Klingon drinking songs are great fun, and in our Star Trek fan club here in Denmark they are a big hit... We even have our own group called "The Kling Singers"

So there is some use for Klingon... FUN

More pointless than learning Klingo?

Writing Poetry in Klingon.

Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz eat your heart out

C Hawke

Poetry??? Why not, I heard that someone already translated Hamlet into Klingon

Learning to speak Wookie.

Wampus

Learning Eunoia, quote 'a phonetic language, in which one phoneme is represented by one graphemic character. Such "written letters" might almost appear sculptural in form: they are not arranged in a sequence (as symbols are in English, for example); instead, letters are juxtaposed and overlapped in order to form an ideogram that is in turn juxtaposed and overlapped with other ideograms in order to form a convoluted palimpsest that might evoke the dimensional complexities of a microcircuit.'
http://www.taelons.com/lexicon/index.html



Alji

Nop, there isn't exept reading Mein Kampf or the Marxist book or something.

These books are great if your learning why your country is bad and if you think everyone should be treated the same.

Or if you wish to know your enemy.

I have to say that I agree with Xanatic here. I am told that it helps to know _why_ atrocities were committed, etc. and, in the case of Mein Kampf, you are at no risk of being converted because the syntax is really bad and the points are made in an unconvincing way and insufficiently developed. Or so I am told. I do plan to read it at some point.

Sadly, there are still people out there who are into that sort of garbage - the internet is alive with them. I wouldn't think that the book is likely to convert anybody - it just confirms the prejudices of people who already feel that way. Perhaps it's useful to know the false arguments the far-right like to use so you can shoot them down. The arguments, that is.

Is Klingon actually a completely different language or does it just replace the words of an established language with new, klingon, words?

From what I gather, the sentence structure, etc. is different as well

Learning Klingon literature must be hard work as well, what with figuring out the moods of Klingons by looking at the text. Let me guess angry, ragefull and generally worse than Vogons.

I'm told that there's a Klingon translation of Shakespeare that's quite funny.

I can think of something... Replying to this when the last post was last March!

Does anyone know where/how I can learn Klingon? I already enjoy insulting people in German, French, English and sign langauge - and another could be fun! I don't speak any of those langauges properly, I just know the insults!

If anyone knows any good Klingon insults - let me know! Or any other langauge, I'll store them for future use!

Kirp

Try http://www.kli.org/

Hab SoSlI' Quch!

Translation - 'Your mother has a smooth forehead!'

Obviously it's a big insult.

...or how about Ewok?



"Yub Nub"

I think there are various phrase books on sale in the novelty section of your average book shop. Lots of Star Trek merchandise around.