qaStaHvIS Mon, 26 Feb 2001 DIS, ghItlh Michael Everson:
> implementation somewhere. It has been seen and approved by the
> Klingon Language Institute, but it does remain true that most users
> of the Klingon language read and write it in its Latin orthography,
> although they will use the font for gifs on their web pages. I do not
> think the KLI has ever published a book entirely in the Klingon
> alphabet.
The most the KLI has published in pIqaD (Klingon script) is T-shirts. :-)
> Current consensus seems to be that there doesn't seem to be a strong
> requirement to interchange text in the Klingon script.
True. People use a one-to-one romanisation to sort their word lists, but
of course that's a collation issue anyway. In addition, the alphabetic
mapping is fan-based (leaked from Paramount, the story goes); Okuda, who
does set design for the show, does not want any mapping between glyphs and
anything, and Okrand doubts the Klingons would use an alphabetic script
anyway. There have been some trading cards with Klingon script and
romanised Klingon; the Klingon script used there is utterly random. And
those with keen eyesight and good VCRs have noted some discrepancies
between Okuda's glyph repertoire and the KLI's.
Furthermore, the 'mummification glyph' (imperial symbol) is
*probably* Paramount copyright, and the KLI has ceased using it as either
an emblem or in their fonts. Were the proposal to ever go ahead (snerk),
it should be dropped; even within the fictional universe, it's more a logo
than a glyph.
The interested may want to check out
http://www.klingonska.org/piqadpic.html , which has the most information
on the script.
-- Nick Nicholas. TLG, UCI, USA. nicholas@uci.edu; www.tlg.uci.edu/~opoudjis Many among their proselytes had sold their lands and houses to increase the public riches of the sect --- at the expense, indeed, of their unfortunate children, who found themselves beggars because their parents had been saints. (Edward Gibbon, _Decline and Fall_.)
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