Re: Sev Trek-translation
MDriest 
Tue, 7 Apr 1998 18:09:18 -0400

Greetings.

Yes Marketa, you are entirely right when you say that Vulcan obviously
has the proper words and I didn't mean to say that it didn't.
The only thing is that WE don't have the words. At least, I have never
seen 'kissing' on your word list, which seems to be excepted by most =

vulcan-l subscribers.
Rob Z. mentioned to me he could easily produce a list with 1200 words
once the vowel phonolgy is finalised.

I have to questions: - what are the unresolved questions in (vowel)
phonology?
                                      - how did Rob 'discover' all these
words?

Vowels are important, as anyone who read the Bulletin from Pralakhute Ngo=
x
knows.
It is a sound system (both meanings) but I take exception to one thing.
The vowels are a,e,o,u,i. This sounds pretty much like most Western
languages to me. Dutch
and English both use those five although the pronounciation differs. Dutc=
h
has an additional =

vowel =FC as well. Why not have eight vowels? Why not totally different
vowels. Something in the =

middle between a and i? A Russian 'y'?
I realise one should have a system to the vowels and Vulcan ZC does this
flawlessly.
We have, however, little reason to suspect that Vulcans would obey human
lingual
laws. Even Terran languages are sometimes a bit unbalanced in their vowel=

systems.

I might, of course, be totally wrong. Fact is that I don't know how the
ground work
for this language was done. I have the grammar and word list by Marketa a=
nd
therefore
much is an accomplished fact to me. Knowing more about that, things could=

be different.
Of course we cannot disregard lingual laws or but I am strictly speaking =
of
the amount
of vowels and which ones Vulcan should have.

In reaction to Rob's comments:
Words like 'yikes!' and 'gross!' are definitely pre-Reformation. I would
not suppose additional
'emotional' (or even worse) words were added after the Reformation of
Surak.
The structure of these words should reflect that. They are at least two
thousand years older
than modern Vulcan.
Which brings me to another question: why is it (almost) not possible to
derive whether a word
is a verb or a noun or something else? There is not uniform format to wor=
ds
from the same class.
I'd deem it logical to have this. This is not necessarily bad, if no word=

has the same form.
In English, the verb love and the noun love are written the same but mean=

not the same. I have
difficulties seeing the Vulcan language being that non-exact.


Live long and considerably prosperous,

Sorahl cha'Sereth
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
The glory of the universe is intelligence. Be never afraid of discovery.
(Adama)