Re: Extra-planetary translation project
MDriest 
Tue, 12 May 1998 20:32:40 -0400

Quotes from Saul:

[about the loss of long/short distinctions]
>In a sense, yes. Having actually heard Marketa's pronunciation, my
>tentative analysis removes the "short" (or "long," depending on your
>perspective) vowels as separate phonemes from the "long" (or "short")
>ones. I never have gotten around to sifting through all the data,
>that's something I should get back to...
I say. Well, if Marketa's pronunciation does not exhibit this distinction=
,
what are we to do? It is a shame, though. It felt really Vulcan to me.
So, the word "yes" becomes simply "a" and we need some variety on that
phoneme for the aff. suffix. =

There are two possibilities. We use the phoneme /a/ for yes and the
aff. suffix or we use two different phonemes. What do you all
prefer? I prefer two different phonemes. In ancient Vulcan, the two
functions may well have used the same phoneme. However, it is
a reasonable idea to assume the Vulcans, through history, developed
a difference for practical reasons. This has happened in many
languages. (To be honest, the other way around too.)

>(Something else I noticed was that <'> literally
>lengthened the preceding vowel -- if any -- rather than changing its
>position as <:> was supposed to. Which is why I suggested using -a'
>as a suffix distinct from -a...)
That may well be. I tried it and got similar results. The one problem
is that we then have to distinguish in writing between the character
a and the character a' or import the ' as an independent character.
If we reach consensus on this I see no reason not to have -a' as a suffix=
=2E

[about my ideas of male/female symmetrie]
>Before I can agree with that, I need to know what a female noun is,
>as opposed to a male noun. If you mean a noun which in a given
>instance names an entity which also happens to be female, then I
>don't see that any distinction need be made. If you mean a noun which
>has a purely grammatical gender, I don't think Vulcan grammar allows
>for that. (This is only my opinion, though.) That only leaves a very
>few words for which the actual gender of the entity makes
>gender-specific terms necessary.
Purely grammatical gender is propably unnecessary and therefore quite
illogical. (For example: 'cupboard' is f. and 'computer' is m.)
I mean words which point at a biological entity. Aunt/uncle is a
good example. The Vulcans are very, VERY precise people. Their genealogie=
s
are much more exact and certainly longer and more reliable then ours.
I say words for family members differ for males and females. Not for
matrilineal or patrilineal reasons but simply to be as exact as possible.=

In the novels we have seen words like sister-daughter, implying Vulcans
do make more distinctions and describe a wider variety of relations
then we do. So Vulcans would likely have separate words for aunt and uncl=
e,
if only by suffix or infix or the like.
Is there a difference for animals? Or do Vulcans say: Look, a male sehlat=
!

>And I guess the short form of my own position is that we really don't
>need a generally-applied, morphological, masculine-feminine
>distinction. I think it makes a lot of sense to have distinct words
>for mother and father because the role each plays in the reproductive
>process is of necessity different. =

I agree. Separate words then. It makes a lot of sense. For words like
carpenter, scientist, healer etc. we should have genderless words.
Adun and Aduna: can be explained away as ancient Vulcan. The stone
age Vulcans were bound to have such words...
And what about 'priestess'? As far as I understand, men cannot be a
priest. Hey! The Vulcans are inverted Catholics! ;=3D)

>I think it makes sense to have distinct words for relatives on one =

>side of one's family compared to those on the other IF the Vulcans who
>speak this language are more strongly matrilineal than patrilineal =

>or vice versa. =

I am not sure. I said earlier that Vulcans are VERY exact. Is there
a Vulcan distinction between for example paternal grandfather and
maternal grandfather? I say yes. Are there two seperate words or is the
distinction made through -fixes? I prefer the first option.

>It think it is
>absolutely inevitable that there will be gender distinctions in the
>terms for those participating in Pon Far and associated rituals. But
>otherwise..,hmm. That wasn't as short as I expected.
Naturally those distinctions are there. And you're forgiven.

I propose to go back to the SevTrek-joke. I am quite happy
with the last translation. If no one has any problems, we
can fit in the new words and go on to the next.

Greetings to all,


Sorahl
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=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 only thing known to be faster than ordinary light is monarchy.=