Re: Voting & Language (& Tuvok)
Saul Epstein 
Thu, 9 Jul 1998 10:01:38 -0500

Quotes from: Mark R. Gardner <markg82*open,org>
Date: Wednesday, July 8, 1998 11:22 PM

> I think we missed some of the postings, so we are unclear of what
this
> voting issue is 100% about.  We will abstain.

That's fine. We're trying to settle on a unified method of
representing Vulcan sounds in our e-mail correspondence and the
resulting documents, the latter being more flexible in terms of
character set.

The ZC Grammar (www,ludwig,ucl,ac,uk/st/StarTrek/Vulcan/VULCAN1,txt)
lays out an ASCII only system. In a previous posting (archived at
www,jccc,net/~sepstein/vald/list/0035,txt) I proposed a set of
revisions to that system, the primary purpose of which was to reduce
the number of double-character signs and use of "following"
diacritics (~ and :) that don't work very well in ASCII contexts. I
eventually created a version for use in more flexible contexts
(www,jccc,net/~sepstein/vald/morphemic/represent,html).

I should point out that both the ZC and my revisions stand at odds
with Marketa's preferences regarding the way ZC Vulcan distributes
its vowels.
 
> Also, we
> feel, that with his obvious racial variation, probably meaning from
a
> far distant part of Vulcan we rarely see, Tuvok probably speaks a
> "regional dialect" in addition to Modern Vulcan.

Some other postings you probably missed include some occasionally
heated debate about Tuvok and what his apparent, possibly "racial,"
variation represents. From the evidence, it is impossible to conclude
either that Tuvok represents a "racial" minority among Vulcans or
that, if he did, the background/status of such a minority would in
any way match that shared by actor Tim Russ with other
African-Americans. I realize that neither of these is directly
implied by your statement, but this is the second time you've
mentioned Tuvok as special, and I get a little uneasy when people do
so -- especially with phrases like "far distant" and "rarely seen."

Tuvok discussions have mostly transpired on the main list, and I
don't maintain a browsable archive for that, but I kept many of the
pertinent messages, and can forward them to you if you'd like....

--
from Saul Epstein
locus*planetkc,com - www,planetkc,com/locus
"Surakri' ow'phatsur the's'hi the's'tca'; the's'pharka the's'hi
     suraketca'."
                                        -- K'dvarin Urswhl'at