Monday, July 11, 2005
A Tale of Two W(h)orfs
The first Worf, is Lieutenant Worf. He is an orphan, adopted by a Starfleet Officer, and became the first Klingon to graduate from Starfleet. Due to his duel Klingon / Starfleet heritage he often proves invaluable to Picard / ST:TNG script writers in explaining what the cr@p the Klingons are on about. The Klingons, rather unhelpfully, speak Klingon. Klingon is an example of a conlang* (constructed language). The Klingon Language Institute** estimates that there are only a few dozen (actual) fluent Klingon speakers. One of them though is Alec Speers who was raised by his mad genius father as a bilingual english / Klingon baby. Fortunately for him he gave it up by age 3 and a half.
The other Whorf, is Benjamin Whorf, co-author of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. This hypothesis posits that thoughts and concepts are entirely constrained by the possibilities of language. It implies that mastering an artfully constructed language, might allow more artful, more intelligent thought. In order to explore this possibility there is a subset of conlangs, called engelangs, that are supposed to explore the limitations of natural languages.
This leaves several unanswered questions. Is the Worf / Whorf coincidence, just that? Or was Rodenberry dropping mad references? Does Alec Speers dream in Klingon? Does it bother him that his mother has a smooth forehead? Are asterisks inherently unsuited to the web?***
* When conlangers get bored they hold a translation relay, which is a giant nerd game of chinese whispers for lingonauts****.
** The first web site I ever visited way back in 1994.
*** And if not why are they so seldom used?
**** Just because that's a neologism, it doesn't mean I consider myself to be one.
The first Worf, is Lieutenant Worf. He is an orphan, adopted by a Starfleet Officer, and became the first Klingon to graduate from Starfleet. Due to his duel Klingon / Starfleet heritage he often proves invaluable to Picard / ST:TNG script writers in explaining what the cr@p the Klingons are on about. The Klingons, rather unhelpfully, speak Klingon. Klingon is an example of a conlang* (constructed language). The Klingon Language Institute** estimates that there are only a few dozen (actual) fluent Klingon speakers. One of them though is Alec Speers who was raised by his mad genius father as a bilingual english / Klingon baby. Fortunately for him he gave it up by age 3 and a half.
The other Whorf, is Benjamin Whorf, co-author of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. This hypothesis posits that thoughts and concepts are entirely constrained by the possibilities of language. It implies that mastering an artfully constructed language, might allow more artful, more intelligent thought. In order to explore this possibility there is a subset of conlangs, called engelangs, that are supposed to explore the limitations of natural languages.
This leaves several unanswered questions. Is the Worf / Whorf coincidence, just that? Or was Rodenberry dropping mad references? Does Alec Speers dream in Klingon? Does it bother him that his mother has a smooth forehead? Are asterisks inherently unsuited to the web?***
* When conlangers get bored they hold a translation relay, which is a giant nerd game of chinese whispers for lingonauts****.
** The first web site I ever visited way back in 1994.
*** And if not why are they so seldom used?
**** Just because that's a neologism, it doesn't mean I consider myself to be one.
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