Skip to main content

star trek - Which language is more fully developed, Klingon or Quenya/Sindarin?


It is well-known that Tolkien's forte is linguistics and he created various fictional languages in his writings. Although Klingon language started off kind of slow, it's emerged as a viable language, even known to be taught in some schools and is readily spoken and conventions and the like.


Which language is the most developed, one of Tolkien's such as Quenya/Sidarian? Or Klingon?


For the purposes of this question, developed means being able to use it conversationally or written like a regular language like English or German.



Answer



Definitely Klingon



Although Tolkien's writings on Quenya and Sindarin are extensive, there simply isn't enough to carry on realistic conversations; unless you're willing to go into some of the fan attempts to flesh the language out, you and your Elvish-speaking partner are basically limited to quoting passages of the Legendarium at each other.


Tolkien himself actually acknowledged this in Letter 297 (emphasis his):



It should be obvious that if it is possible to compose fragments of verse in Quenya and Sindarin, those languages (and their relations one to another) must have reached a fairly high degree of organization – though of course, far from completeness, either in vocabulary, or in idiom.


[...]


Also of interest to some, and agreeable to me, would be an historical grammar of Quenya and Sindarin and a fairly extensive etymological vocabulary of these languages of course far from 'complete', but not limited to words found in the tales. But I do not intend to engage in these projects, until my mythology and legends are completed.


The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien 297: To 'Mr. Rang' (draft). August 1967



Klingon, on the other hand, is quite a bit more extensively-developed, to the point where you actually can read (and perform) Shakespeare "in the original Klingon."


John McWhorter, professor of linguistics (among other things) at Columbia University, discusses fictional constructed languages ("conlangs") in this Ted-Ed video, and comes to the same conclusion:






Relevant transcript (emphasis mine):



McWhorter: The truth is, though, that Elvish is a sketch for a real language than a whole one. For Tolkien, Elvish was a hobby rather than an attempt to create something people could actually speak. Much of the Elvish that characters in the Lord of the Rings movies speak has been made up since Tolkien by dedicated fans of Elvish, based on guesses as to what Tolkien would have constructed. That's the best we can do for Elvish, because there are no actual Elves around to speak it for us. But the modern conlangs go further: Dothraki, Na'vi, and Klingon are developed enough that you can actually speak them.



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

harry potter - Do the Kwikspell courses work?

In Harry Potter we are introduced to Kwikspell course in The Chamber of Secrets (and never hear about it again). We see Filch taking courses, presumably by mail. The descriptions of Kwikspell make me think it is for people who are weak in magic (kind of like how Neville was supposed to be when he was younger), but had magic in them nonetheless. However, Ron's comments later in the chapter make it sound like it is mainly for Squibs to learn magic. However, it is strongly implied through out all the books that Squibs are essentially Muggles, and will never be able to do magic. How then is a Kwikspell course supposed to work? Do we have any information to know if it works at all? Is it a scam? An answer from any level of canon is welcome. Answer Kwikspell courses are (probably) useful to some wizards, but not to squibs. The Kwikspell course literature comes with two testimonials. Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes: ‘I had no memory for incantations and my potions were a family joke...

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.

star trek - Warning regarding forward saucer section in Nemesis?

In Star Trek: Nemesis , just before the Enterprise rams into the Scimitar, Picard sends a text message from his captain's chair arm pad to Troi — who is manning the helm in lieu of the crewman who was just blown out through what was once the view screen — indicating that she should put full impulse on standby. (Literally, if you watch the scene closely, Troi's console prefaces the order with "TXT MSG" !) My question is: Did Picard also somehow warn crew members in the forward saucer section about what was about to happen? The ramming of the Scimitar was a heat of the moment decision. Considering that he also resorted to calling the auto-destruct sequence shortly after (which ended up being offline), he probably was of the mindset that any losses would be acceptable in order to hault Shinzon's march to Earth. Still, I'm curious. Answer The original script indicates that he called for the crew to " brace for impact ". Whether that call (or the comma...

star wars - What "exactly" happens when someone turns to the Dark Side?

When I saw the original Star Wars saga as a kid, the concept of the Dark Side imprinted in me was quite simple. You did a bad thing, so you're a bad person so you go to the Dark Side and keep doing bad things. Now, obviously this doesn't hold true in reality. In my mind it is perfectly reasonable for Luke to kill the Emperor and Vader and then just flee the Death Star and rejoin the Alliance. After all they are at war, those are enemy officers that have captured him and are taunting him by threatening with death of all loved ones and the whole operation was intended to kill the Emperor anyway. The same would hold true for Anakin. He could have killed Mace Windu to save the Chancellor and Padme but that doesn't mean he's going to then go mad and kill all Jedis including children. It doesn't add up from a merely psychological point of view. He had a set of objectives and that made him want to keep the Chancellor alive (quite valid by the way, Mace Windu is quite clums...