Star Trek Ferengi Languages by 1995 Timothy Miller, David Salo, and 1995-2017 TV Show Writers and Kim Douglas

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Bob
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Re: Star Trek Ferengi Language by Timothy Miller and David Salo from 1995

Post by Bob »

THOUGHTS ON THE VULCAN AND FERENGI CONLANGS, PSEUDO-CONLANGS, AND FICTIONAL PEOPLES:
BY AN AMATEUR LANGUAGE SCIENTIST AND ANTHROPOLOGIST


CONTENTS

introduction

the quality and qualities of these conlangs; 15 years of research prefaces this

who made these languages and why?

star trek appeals to both adults and children

the most profound considerations when dealing with historic and modern texts: they're all just lying and you're the fool to believe them

case study in conlang background: the pakuni language from the 1970s tv show "land of the lost"

the importance to secrets, details, and honesty to anthropology

my own 15 year study of conlangs in famous books, tv, and movies

my own priorities in conlanging and in the study of conlangs: science and excellence

anthropologist comments on the vulcan, ferengi, klingon, and other star trek cultures or peoples

the difficulties of such commentary and studies

apologies for certain difficult characteristics of this essay

star trek cultures are as made by western peoples for their fiction

all peoples have theatre and it is all has similarities

cultures and beliefs are difficult for anyone to talk about, especially without great subtlety

yet special comments here on logographic writing systems in star trek

relevance of these studies to the ongoing global plague catastrophies

let us remain now remain true to eachother and do bravely, recalling our parents and teachers and the labor pains of our mothers

INTRODUCTION

Okay, so I finished my quick "Vulcan Language Institute" Vulcan Language translation project.

Then I read through the entirety of the rather short grammars of "1995 Timothy Miller" Ferengi and "Amino Website Ferengi A and B". There was a third one, from a Star Trek Fans website, but it was a duplicate of the 1995 work.

THE QUALITY AND QUALITIES OF THESE CONLANGS; 15 YEARS OF RESEARCH PREFACES THIS

Actually, I'm surprised anyone is interested in these projects at all. It recently occured to me, considering what I have seen of modern and past conlangs on Zompist Bboard and this Conlang Bulletin Board, among others, that these Vulcan conlangs and Ferengi conlangs - even Klingon - are not very good at all in comparison with the works made by the people on these groups.

I suppose an argument could be made for their quality in light of their tying into this great body of art which is the Star Trek franchise c 1960s to today. Notwithstanding. Yet I find myself working with these "lesser conlangs" and also associated "pseudo-conlangs" because it's my specialization to work with conlangs from famous books, tv, movies, and then the history and anthropology of conlanging. There is indeed a point to this: I have and regularly do review the pertinent academic literature, the very cutting edge, and very little attention is given to conlanging as a whole by language scientists (my prefered term for academia linguists, er, linguistics professors) or others. And so it is that I make available my own savant pronouncements on my website and facebook groups, to share my hand work with all and improve the world. Alas that my insights at least sometimes go under-appreciated. It's never stopped me for long before, though. And my #1 specialization is actually all 50 known logographic writing systems, so if I mess this one up so bad, it really isn't much of a loss in my mind and understanding of things.

All within the past week or so, I looked up as many "Vulcan Languages" as I could on the internet, took notes, and drew from it all when making my translation, my own optional grammar expansions, and commentary upon the languages. But I used the Vulcan Language Institute Vulcan Languages, particularly its main Golic Vulcan (aka Modern Vulcan?) dialect or language.

From my own vast studies in the ancient languages, especially, and also many exotic languages of the world, those studied less, I have found things to be impressed about the VLI Vulcan Languages. They make the (believeable) claim that they (a group of about 40 people at the time of writing c 2002) had combed every Star Trek book and tv show. Wow, that's dedication. Yet it's the sort of thing I've done for, to give but one example, chuckle, the second (maybe first) most important historical Native American or New World Indigenous language, 1600s Massachusett (the language of the First Thanksgiving Dinner Indians, the Wampanoag and Narragansett, etc). My own research of real languages and especially their writing systems has been like that, pioneering, dedicated, cutting-edge. So that would be another argument in favor of the superiority of these conlangs over others.

And Ferengi is similar but the fan- and writer- made conlangs and pseudo-conlangs were from 1995 and 2017, not from the 1960s and 1980 - Today.

I consider myself a language scientist yet have full realization that I am "an independent scholar" or a sort of "amateur", though I am familiar with the majority of amateur language scientists and anthropologists and must profess myself distinct from them. I have a BA Linguistics (I prefer the term Language Science, which I coined) from Michigan State University and 15 years of research in language science and anthropology, with extensive and careful study of writings from cutting-edge academics, no less. Though for my sub-discipline, I have also had to invent and pioneer many terms, ideas, and methods, and made many discoveries which I have had to deal with. But all along, what I learned in my degree and have read since has guided and helped me a lot.

WHO MADE THESE LANGUAGES AND WHY?

And so I can say that these various conlangs and pseudo-conlangs were the work of amateur and maybe professional linguists of various sorts. Seemingly often linguistics degree or course students. If I can guess from their writing styles, which I think I can. The Vulcan Languages are also very anonymous to me, aside from the leader of the Vulcan Language Institute, Mark Gardner, who is very prominent on facebook, very celebrated, and absolutely magnanimous and an embodiment of the very best of Star Trek philosophies.

That said, I recently made an extensive "optional grammar expansion" for VLI Vulcan because it was still too much like English and I wanted its grammar more fleshed out. I also found the words as presented and used to be too much like English and too otherwise lacking as conlang words.

But it's interesting to see and read the work of others. Alas, that these masterpieces (I would call them that, in a sense, yet also hold back on it) go unsung and under-appreciated. Yet there seems few to me in the world with the experience and achievement to evaluate such things. And I have found few evaluations out there by conlangers or anyone.

All of which is no matter to me! "Hippocleides careth not!" For I have now spent 15 years becoming a worldwide unique, and within my offline and online communities most fiercely celebrated and be-gifted, especially offline of course, my love now to them all, scholar of not only ancient and exotic languages, but of the wisdom and many other delights and treasures to be found therein. Yet I have been reproved of-late on Zompist Bboard and this Conlang Bulletin Board for a lack of humility - so I will work on that. Yet one cannot expect too much of mere mortals in The Shadow of Great Olympus and they often disappoint. Ha ha ha, ha ha.

But even the top scholars of the world, whom almost nobody knows what they're talking about, have given my work little attention that I know of. Some of them have, though, and some amateurs have. And much positive, though some undeserved and short-sighted, and often not pointing out lackings which I myself was already quite aware. Most do not realize it but this is all very difficult work for me and I am much more in need of rain than sunshine, were I a plant. Yet internet people seem to often lack in imagination, life expertience, and reading, and do not read between the lines nor even read that carefully which is written. I have once been thrown out of a certain internet community merely for trying to tell others how to keep me around and get my better works out of me. Much important communication and anticipation in life is subtle.

And so it is that I wish to say that these Ferengi conlangs from "1995" and the Amino website were seemingly both done by amateur language scientists, not ones with PhD's or years of teaching experience in academia. Both were done by some sort of graduate or undergraduate in language science (linguistics, not polyglotism).

Let me now hold forth upon this. The author of the 1960s "Vulcan Language" in Spockanalia II or III, now free on Internet Archive Website, seems also to have been a student graduate or undergraduate in language science, maybe even a professional. And then the preface to the Lulu.Com Vulcan Language book, derived from the c 2004 Vulcan Language Institute website, now accessible only via The Wayback Machine, says that both amateur language scientists and professionals worked on it. And indeed these Ferengi conlangs do acknowledge contribution from professionals, though they seem mostly the work of sorts of amateur language scientists.

STAR TREK APPEALS TO BOTH ADULTS AND CHILDREN

And now I come to an important point: "Star Trek" seems to have a certain appeal to all audiences, by which I mean that it also appeals to younger people and children. I actually make a special study of the anthropology of children across all time and in "Children's Literature" and related genres or texts, inasfar as they can be suspected. So I notice that works of fantasy in The West - and elsewhere in different ways - are associated especially with childhood and youth.

What genres are more for adults in the West? Well, comedies, romantic comedies, detective stories, etc. Dramas.

And what genres are more for children? Children's books, children's movies, fantasy. And it is these works which I study and take a greater interest in, in part because they contain more historic and fantasy elements than other genres. I also make special studies of the anthropology of children and the very old and other minority groups and gain much and unique insights thereby. They're under-studied and I think severely misunderstood. I find education in general to be sorely neglected by humans of every age, though of certain ones in particular.

Works of interest and geared towards children and youth have more of a dream quality to them and involve a great many ideas and concepts which adults find together outlandish and childish. Adults in general find kids annoying and avoid them. It's an acquired skill and strain to get used to them. Younger people and children have very different mindsets from adults.

Or maybe the ages of these contributors to Star Trek conlangs comes from the process of education, which is also associated with youth and childhood. In education, people explore a wide range of theory and ideas which they may or may not encounter and use later.

THE MOST PROFOUND CONSIDERATIONS WHEN DEALING WITH HISTORIC AND MODERN TEXTS: THEY'RE ALL JUST LYING AND YOU'RE THE FOOL TO BELIEVE THEM

Oh, and then it's also possible that the actual authors of these conlangs presented themselves in such a way that it would seem as if they were someone who they were not. Adults of all ages also take interest in works of fantasy and science-fiction. This is one of the greatest considerations in dealing with historic and ancient languages and their texts, one which I have spent much time exploring and considering but which is otherwise sorely neglected. Without a healthy criticism of what is bookish and the limitations of books in any given culture or time period, one comes closer to gaining harm from vast reading and further from gaining maximum help.

And then there are different sorts of adults. I think that those with children are quite different for mindset than those with children, and that there are differences between those with few children and those with many.

CASE STUDY IN CONLANG BACKGROUND: THE PAKUNI LANGUAGE FROM THE 1970S TV SHOW "LAND OF THE LOST"

Where and who entirely do conlangs come from? Often, it is obscure and shrouded in mystery. For my own extensive and unmatched studies on the Paku Language or Pakuni Language from the 1970s "Land of the Lost" and associated works, I have studied what was more easily available of the life and academic works of Linguistics Professor Victoria Fromkin of the UCLA University of California Los Angeles. The possible insights were worth their weight in gold. There is a sense of poetry in motion about the works of Hollywood, sometimes. But there is also bitter irony and some things are probably best not known. Yet who can say that ignorance is bliss? Not I.

THE IMPORTANCE TO SECRETS, DETAILS, AND HONESTY TO ANTHROPOLOGY

Yet, for the scholar of anthropology, such things matter deeply. And not all peoples can be reached and many faux pas's line the paths of progress and retrogradation.

"He who sees things grow from the beginning will have the best view of them."
-Aristotle
"Αυτός που βλέπει / τα πράγματα μεγαλώνουν από την αρχή / θα έχει την καλύτερη θέα από αυτούς. "
- Αριστοτέλης

MY OWN 15 YEAR STUDY OF CONLANGS IN FAMOUS BOOKS, TV, AND MOVIES

Anyhow, in the course of setting myself as a language scientist of conlanging as a whole, and of those parts of it which I have chosen for specialization, having a lifelong interest and luck regarding theatre, I have found myself giving special attention to "The Marc Okrand Languages" and "The Star Trek Conlangs and Pseudo-Conlangs". So it is that, after many years of hopes and planning and anticipation - perhaps since 2007 in some regards - I have these past weeks found time to focus on Klingon, Mutsun, Vulcan, and now Ferengi. And I may make it 3 weeks. And this all as a haitus from work on Okrand's Atlantean.

MY OWN PRIORITIES IN CONLANGING AND IN THE STUDY OF CONLANGS: SCIENCE AND EXCELLENCE

And the point of these things is both public outreach but also building up my own skills as a language scientist and anthropologist. I do not aspire to be the greatest of conlangers in the eyes of some or the more vocal members of Zompist Bboard and Conlang Bulletin Board. Yet I have for the past 15 years aspired to be the greatest of conlangers in my own eyes and the eyes of an impartial and ideal future audience. And so it is that my own studies inform my work on conlangs, whenever and whatever form that may take. Again, it just so happens that my own specialization is one very alien to most language scientists, the many unknown and unsuspected little details and nuances and undiscovered treasures of the 50 or so known logographic writing systems (like Egyptian, Chinese, Mayan, Cuneiform), and with reference to related phenomena, especially "Mnemonic Symbol Systems" (like Dongba Symbols). Perhaps that results in what appear to be amateurish conlangs to most. Yet I have also studied the most detailed of reference grammars and spent many years studying a huge variety of languages. So I have some idea what I'm doing.

ANTHROPOLOGIST COMMENTS ON THE VULCAN, FERENGI, KLINGON, AND OTHER STAR TREK CULTURES OR PEOPLES

THE DIFFICULTIES OF SUCH COMMENTARY AND STUDIES

Now, that all said, and not to disappoint, but after 15 years of tremendous reading of texts from all over the world and ethnography (documentations of different peoples from all over the world, usually done by professional anthropologists), it is delightful to me to read some of the things in and associated with these conlangs - and at other times tiresome.

Well, what did you expect? It is like that if you study a lot, when people get close to whatever you study, you have to strain yourself to be agreeable rather than attempting illuminating. And expect misunderstanding when - and it always happens - that you slip. In particular, it is difficult to study the science and intricacies of language and languages, and within anthropology I especially study the wide variety of human beliefs and ideas ever to exist - comparative religion, comparative ideology, call it what you will. So I usually give people more tolerance and graciousness than they expect or give to me. But that's the habit of being an excellent - or even most sorts - of scholar, it changes you. And all hobbies and professions and such are like this, they make for tendencies.

But railing upon the best attempts of these amateur language scientists and anthropologists is not good form.

APOLOGIES FOR CERTAIN DIFFICULT CHARACTERISTICS OF THIS ESSAY

I just wrote all this up quickly and did not plan it out so much. I've been reading a lot of a certain ancient text genre recently and I think it also shows in my writing. Yet now I am shy to discuss such things because of certain recent suspicious occurrences. People who haven't the patience for this sort of writing, despite the section headings I have devised, I would challenge them that they are unaccustomed to pushing themselves through more difficult sorts of texts. Can you imagine? Over 15 years, I have gained an acquired taste for a great many unusual and otherwise boring and odd genres. So, as always, I hope my readers to meet me half way but usually find that they do not. And on a few internet forums, I get get tomatoes in return for my hard work, and worse. Though the joy of facebook, which I now of all times am learning the hard way, is that when someone is blocked, they usually will not comment on your posts any more nor will you see anything new posted or replied by them - unless you are an admin. And almost no one comments on my websites, though I do have visitors, though not very many. Folks, in life, it doesn't usually take ten or even two, it only takes one. One at a time. And where there is many, there perhaps is or isn't the attention to each which is best.

STAR TREK CULTURES ARE AS MADE BY WESTERN PEOPLES FOR THEIR FICTION

Yet, I should like to say a single word of insight, to prove and share my own long and difficult labors on behalf of all the peoples:

Fiction, all over the world, obscurely reflects the knowledge and experience of its creators. I know this from studying it, also, over the past 15 years. I also had some coursework in anthropology archaeology in college, on top of vast concurrent and later readings and "fieldwork" around the world.

The Vulcans of these "Vulcan Languages", any of them, are unlike real peoples in many ways. How can we compare? In Star Trek, entire planets are reduced to a few members of fairly uniform and not especially professionally-designed non-material culture. Which is okay, there's also a lot of real-life experience and fictional tropes therein. The point of Star Trek is financial success and whatever science they can manage along the way, great. But there's also a lot of symbolism and gags that get mixed up with it.

But I get the impression that all Star Trek cultures are all very Western and made by Westerners with really limited experience with or book study of non-Western cultures. Western's Jewish Subcultures seem to also be of note.

But maybe it all seems sufficiently exotic and intriguing to the audience of Star Trek. Maybe some people write in with complaints and they incorporate those ideas and see if it works out. "The play's the thing to capture the conscience of a king."

ALL PEOPLES HAVE THEATRE AND IT IS ALL HAS SIMILARITIES

All peoples known to exist have had dramatically recounted stories and things like theater. Yet, if you would learn something, I make claims at being an amateur language scientist and anthropologist, and here try to give some insight into what is beyond.

The creative team of Star Trek tries to make works that both appeal to people and teach them things. Though how much ambiguity and local cultures get in the way of that is a matter of great interest but probably little study. Instead, Hollywood and such seem to measure success in dollar signs and few take much interest in the intended and unintended effects on the audiences. But maybe this is simplifying things a lot.

CULTURES AND BELIEFS ARE DIFFICULT FOR ANYONE TO TALK ABOUT, ESPECIALLY WITHOUT GREAT SUBTLETY

Anyway, I usually write about language science and ancient and exotic languages on my website and on facebook groups because writing about cultures and beliefs quickly offends people - and most of my audience hasn't studied these things as much as I have. And those who have, have different approaches and understandings of these things which make for possible awkward interactions. Beliefs, languages, and cultures are very personal things, and people may often be far more intolerant of differences in them than they realize. And yet, I have attempted in my various writings, travels, and actions to be both student and teacher.

But what I said of the Vulcans also goes for the Ferengi.

I know a great many things, or think I do, regarding a great many peoples from all over the world and all over time.

YET SPECIAL COMMENTS HERE ON LOGOGRAPHIC WRITING SYSTEMS IN STAR TREK

Yet what I will here say is that I find the general Star Trek, Vulcan and Ferengi, canonical and fanonical conlang and pseudo-conlang associated fiction, I find them to have an unscientific and outdated view of logographic writing systems. China and Japan both use logographic writing systems, without really much recent simplification. The common Western idea that logographic writing systems are outdated and backwards is not scientific. Like a wide variety of other material and non-material human culture, it's just all chance. The future could be totally illiterate and it could also be entirely logographic.

The line between alphabetic and logographic is also not as clear as generally thought, in the understanding of this languages scientist. Back in about 1980, we had in English the symbols !@#$%^&*() . Now we also have emoji. Are these part of the English writing system or not? Scientists specializing in such things should know.

And then were is the line between writing systems and iconography systems (which I also study extensively for the logographic studies)(these being art symbol systems)? There is and isn't, scientifically speaking, a fine line. And there's huge areas of overlap. In many ways, much of the core phenomena of logographic writing systems is unavoidable, it's just that few study it in sufficient depth to realize it or the importance of knowing so. I here quickly proclaim that there's great importance to my studies in comparative logographic writing systems. Ignorance is not bliss and better control makes for better planning and better living.

RELEVANCE OF THESE STUDIES TO THE ONGOING GLOBAL PLAGUE CATASTROPHIES

Would it have helped or hurt thousands of people now recently dead of the coronavirus, to have spent more time in their lives studying historic primary source accounts of past plagues and the associated panic that made them worse? A lot of people out there, albeit nominally literate, can't even compare the words "plague" and "pandemic", despite their being among a panoply of natural and folk-influenced disasters. Even if the overall death toll is not that great, isn't it already very great in consideration that these are all avoidable deaths? And how many disasters are there where the afflicted people did not learn their lessons from them, did not make a careful enough study of mistakes and fed themselves into a greater disaster to come? Though there is also something to be said for over-preparation. Alas that so much ancient wisdom is hidden in historic and ancient writings, the careful study of whose languages is generally derided, despite the world population seemingly being far greater than it ever has been before. Now, of all times, is the time for tolerance, diversity, and flexibility. Now is also the time to understand foreign peoples and use that knowledge to the best of our ability. Or rather, the past was the time to do these things and now is the time to regret it, "Now is the winter of our discontent."

LET US REMAIN NOW REMAIN TRUE TO EACHOTHER AND DO BRAVELY, RECALLING OUR PARENTS AND TEACHERS AND THE LABOR PAINS OF OUR MOTHERS

Yet, true to my pledges, I will stay true to excellence in scholarship to the very last, ever dedicated to benevolence and gratitude over malevolence and ingratitude, despite "the stings and arrows of outrageous fortune", " the rich man's contumely".

"A friend in need is a friend indeed."

...
...

Image: Here's an image I made for this post for posting it on facebook. I specialize in the etymology of animal vocabulary because it's a good thing to do if you study logographic writing systems, among other reasons.

Image
Last edited by Bob on 12 Aug 2020 22:28, edited 1 time in total.
Bob
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Re: Star Trek Ferengi Language by Timothy Miller and David Salo from 1995

Post by Bob »

MORE THOUGHTS ON THE FERENGI LANGUAGES AND MY UPCOMING TRANSLATIONS INTO THEM

I don't think David Salo had much to do with the 1995 Timothy Miller conlang. Both it and the Animo one (by screen name person "GeekyDreams" associated somehow with a (seemingly actual, probably Linguistics) "Professor Carlson" have features in them which are very interesting.

This mostly deals with the pseudo-conlang and or conlang "Amino Ferengi Language A" from the Star Trek episode "Little Green Men".

https://aminoapps.com/c/star-trek/page/ ... zkJoNG7Q4j

This mostly deals with the pseudo-conlang and or conlang "Amino Ferengi Language B" from the Star Trek episode "Little Green Men".

https://aminoapps.com/c/star-trek/page/ ... Evr3Yexv4X

Actually, I didn't manage to say it above but I'm quite intrigued by the corpus of "The Rules of Acquisition" and "The 178 Ferengi Words for Rain". I might translate some or all of them and may extend my studies of these languages another week yet, making 3 whole weeks.

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Ferengi_language

https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/Ferengi_language

You know, sigh, as a contrast to Okrand Atlantean, Klingon, and Vulcan, I was going to go with a polysynthetic Ferengi Language. But I think it would be neater and more in keeping with my past studies - which include a survey of all the pseudo-conlangs in the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs (early 1900s science fiction and fantasy author: Tarzan, At the Earth's Core, Princess of Mars / Barsoom - if I just worked from the pseudo-conlangs and or conlangs made by the writers of the show and the two fans by whom I've found conlangs or "expanded conlangs".

"Amino Ferengi Language B" is from the Star Trek episode "Acquisition" and notably contains words clearly based on French and French mixed with English and maybe another major world language like Greek. Which sounds like something a TV show writer would do, right, base an alien language on French. I mean, it's okay, but still. I think we should applaud the writers for trying and doing these two episodes with extensive Ferengi language at all. Maybe these were done to see what the impact would be on fans. That's my guess.

But Amino Ferengi A looks isolating and then Amino Ferengi B, well, I don't think it's so clear what sort of mophological type it is.

Neither of these conlangs and or pseudo-conlangs seems very fleshed out - but I don't want to spend a lot of time fleshing out the details. So they might not end up that interesting. But it's better to do what you can with what time you have, rather than to not do so.

It's possible, from what's on the Amino website, that the writers actually did get a conlanger involved and included real conlangs. But without explanations of how the conlangs or pseudo-conlangs work, it's not clear what's going on. It seems that A is maybe a conlang that's very close to a "relex" of English whereas B implies that there's more to the conlang than just a relex but might not actually be a conlang but a type of pseudo-conlang.

One of the general earmarks of a pseudo-conlang, though, is that it lacks the re-occuring morphemes that real languages all have: And, of, to, pronouns, possessors, cases like nominative, accusative, locative: These sort of things. And then most languages make their morphemes do double duty and more - preforming multiple grammatical fuctions. Without stuff like that, and which B seems to lack, it looks like a pseudo-conlang even if it is not.

And if I didn't say or imply it already, the 1995 Timothy Miller conlang was really great and it's too bad I can't just use that all the time. The same, actually, goes for the 1960s Spockanalia (now on Internet Archive) II or III conlang by Dorothy (ironically) - except that it really wasn't so fleshed out for words and grammar as the later Vulcan Language Institute Vulcan Language - which was clearly heavily inspired by it. Compare the two.

Oh, and that said, I used as much of the 1960s Vulcan conlang as I could but it wasn't that much. However, there were some (Conlang Bulletin Board or Zompist Bboard) thoughts on a Vulcan language from maybe around 2003 - and I used none of that and now wish that I could, just for the sake of making something more satisfying. So I might do that.
Bob
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Re: Star Trek Ferengi Language by Timothy Miller and David Salo from 1995

Post by Bob »

Because Ferengi lacks a dictionary like Klingon and Vulcan, I'm thinking of actually somehow using my new English to Pali or Pali to English dictionaries to come up with words. Mostly because I have yet to do much work exploring them or making indexes for them. And they look very interesting. (You know, Pali is almost the same as Sanskrit as far as etymology and grammar goes, both being Indic languages of Indo-European and both from Ancient India.) While it's great to have alien languages be a priori like Klingon (or Vulcan), I have actually a few really amazing and interesting ancient language dictionaries just waiting for one of us to use them. And you really notice if you go from Klingon to Vulcan how great it is to be working from a sizeable dictionary and have a greater variety of words to be looking through and get slightly sidetracked on.

( The ancient languages in question: Middle Egyptian by Faulkner, Middle Egyptian by Budge, Sumerian by Halloran, a huge Modern Cambodian dictionary from the 1970s which generally lacks the interesting historical and philosophical words of the other dictionaries but has many of anthropological interest, Pali English, English Pali, and then the sizeable Student's Dictionary of Medieval and Classical Chinese by Kohl. Among some others. I have at least one really big one. I used to have a huge Ancient Greek one but donated it to a public library in an impoverished area. I miss all those books, though. And maybe others, including the dictionaries I can't even read. Including several gigantic 1800s dictionaries of Sanskrit that I miss a lot. Materials toward a Dictionary of Hamito-Semitic by Olga Shmirnov is memorable and I've still go it. But not extensive. )

That said, for my recent months' work on Okrand Atlantean, I've made a lot of use of these ancient language dictionaries. Also, most of them need indexes because no English index exists for them. It's also just faster to make up words a piriori from existing words, though. With Klingon and Vulcan, at least I had the benefit of a dictionary. Part of the problem with Klingon, by the way, is that they don't just keep re-printing or publishing online a complete and expanded dictionary. Though, as I said, if they did, I've seen the new words and don't think they're consistent with the original words or original language concept, and to a disagreeable degree.

Then again: What would go better with a totally a priori and exotic conlang than yet another somewhat obnoxious Plane Jane ancient Indo-European language? And when else am I personally even going to get to make use of those dictionaries, to say nothing of the others? I really have studied enough Indo-European languages to last me several lifetimes at this point and have recently struggled to even study Hittite. ( Which calls to mind: Isn't it really a shame that we don't have an extensive dictionary of Old Tamil in English with a full English index and probably a full English to Old Tamil section? And then with etymology? Though we have that one giant etymological dictionary of Dravidian Languages and I spent some time with it a year ago and it was phenomenal though maybe outdated in some ways. Maybe "A Dravidian Etymological Dictionary". )

And again, Vulcan's dictionary is far more interesting due to its wide variety of scientific terminology and even probably some philosophical and religious terminology.
Bob
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Re: Star Trek Ferengi Language by Timothy Miller and David Salo from 1995

Post by Bob »

Then here's a song for the study of Ferengi Languages:

Mine, Mine, Mine, Pocahontas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSfYrPdTKVA

I'm actually one of 10 skilled scholars to ever do extensive work on the 1600s language of Pocahontas, that of the Indians around Jamestown Colony, of the Pohwatan Empire. As well as the related, for writing system and language, Eastern Algonquian, languages of Indians around Roanoke Colony and Plymouth Colony (the language of the famous Indians of The First Thanksgiving Dinner, famous to Americans).

1500s Carolina Algonquian
1600s Powhatan Language
1600s Massachusett Language

1600s Massachusett is notable for being the first or second most important historical New World Indigenous language. But it also has maybe the longest words of any language ever documented - or some of the longest. (Though "word length" is scientifically a *little* nebulous scientifically ... all things considered. )

What sort of work? The first public and online extensive and interlinear glossed translations - and of the only surviving documented myth-derived fairy tales of these and closely related (Eastern Algonquian) peoples.

https://anylanguageatall411.blogspot.co ... w=flipcard

I was doing that mostly all of last summer. Now I mention it whenever I can when trying to tell people about Okrand Atlantean, Okrand's Klingon, and Vulcan and Ferengi and such. I was inspired by the Wampanaak Language Reclamation Project by Professor Jessie Baird of the Wampanoag Peoples there of southern Cape Cod or near there, in Massachusetts.

And I have been in extensive contact with all the interested modern communities - Native American and Non-Native American. Though I also look in the mirror sometimes because I'm Mohawk by blood and probably related to the Wampanoag by blood - they did not live that far away from eachother and are documented to have interacted. People traveled very far in the past, they had large canoes and trade routes went down to southern Mexico and beyond. I have to say this because of the global Native American community and associated people. Some of them really like it if you're a scholar and also Native American by blood. Me, I welcome all peoples to study New World Indigenous languages ... but some Native Americans think otherwise. And a lot, at least ones on facebook, don't think I have enough Native American blood to be considered a Native American. But then there's ones who think the opposite and ones that don't care, all of which can be found on facebook are are rumored to not use facebook or not go on facebook groups.



...

The song reminds me - me doing unique work on the Ferengi language earns me major bragging rights with my offline friends. They're big fans of Star Trek. I also am facebook friends with major names in Star Trek official and fanfic conlanging.
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Re: Star Trek Ferengi Language by Timothy Miller and David Salo from 1995

Post by masako »

are you gonna answer any of the questions people have asked?
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Re: Star Trek Ferengi Language by Timothy Miller and David Salo from 1995

Post by Khemehekis »

Bob wrote: 12 Aug 2020 22:58 And I have been in extensive contact with all the interested modern communities - Native American and Non-Native American. Though I also look in the mirror sometimes because I'm Mohawk by blood and probably related to the Wampanoag by blood - they did not live that far away from eachother and are documented to have interacted.
An immigrant from the Philippines with Mohawk blood? How'd you get the Mohawk admixture in you?
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Re: Star Trek Ferengi Language by Timothy Miller and David Salo from 1995

Post by masako »

Khemehekis wrote: 13 Aug 2020 00:51 An immigrant from the Philippines with Mohawk blood? How'd you get the Mohawk admixture in you?
What's even funnier...I'm pretty sure I've seen an image that is supposed to be "Bob" and is was very Caucasian. Not assuming anything, as I know skin tone, hair texture, eye color, etc, don't determine race (necessarily), but I have questions too.
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Re: Star Trek Ferengi Language by Timothy Miller and David Salo from 1995

Post by Bob »

More progresss on this project: So I've made working notes on the 1995 grammar and on Part 1 of the Amino website post from 2017.

The 1995 Ferengi Language only seems to be based on a few words in Ferengi from "official" books or tv shows, etc. I just read in some old book that I have, something like Unauthorized Trekkers' Guide to The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine (up to season 2, I think), that the Ferengi were in The Next Generation from the beginning. I saw a few or more episodes of that but was about 7 to 10 at the time. It's by that Timothy Miller of Florida, then probably about 21 and in college at University of South Florida, maybe for undergraduate linguistics.

The language seems strongly influenced by The Klingon Dictionary etc Klingon. The Vulcan Language Institute Vulcan Languages are also strongly influenced by that Klingon. I thought it was interesting and did a lot of neat things. I got the sense that it was maybe influenced by Georgian, Modern Greek, Ancient Greek, German, French, Native American languages maybe of Florida or the SE USA, and then the sort of things you find in Linguistics 101 and Phonology 101 etc textbooks from around 1995. But then there was a sense of reading beyond that, though it was maybe strained and more of an undergraduate rather than graduate or beyond nature. The author names a certain professor, Dr. Jacob Caflisch, who was faculty at that university The entire document was a delight to read because of how strongly it evoked that era. Notably, one of the example sentences (not all of which are interlinear glossed, sadly) is "Seeing is Believing", the tag line for the posters for the children and teens' movie "Casper".

The contribution of Professor David Salo of Madison, Wisconsin, seems to have been very limited, given what the author of the conlang himself says. If we can believe any of that, you know.

The author seems to have spent quite a bit of time on the conlang but gave various parts of the language uneven attention. Which is all fine by me, I'm just saying. It was really interesting, especially when compared to Klingon and what I know of a wide variety of languages and writing systems.

...

Ah, and then the Amino website 2017 Ferengi Language was an analysis of a conlang or pseudo-conlang made by the two writers of the tv episode "Little Green Men", maybe for the series DS9 "Deep Space 9". It was really great but if the author knew more about languages (another university undergraduate linguistics major) knew more about a wide variety of languages, she could have made more creative "assignments", maybe in addition to her guesses. They say it's probably something similar to a relex of English but I'm not so convinced. I'm not sure if I'll entirely go with her guesses and inventions or sometimes make something more exotic.

And then I still have Part 2 of the Amino website, which is of the Ferengi Language conlang or pseudo-conlang of the episode "Acquisition". I read it already and it's a distinct conlang or pseudo-conlang from the previous one. That one seems to be less likely to be like a relex of English but more likely to actually be a pseudo-conlang which only has enough internal consistency to resemble a conlang without actually being one. You could probably write the writer on facebook and they would just tell you. If they remember, you know how memory is if you're a celebrity or part of the Hollywood set. But I'm not that into it and apparently no is, even with the small number of people quite or notably devoted to the Klingon Language.

...

I want to make a Ferengi Language which combines all 3 so that no one is disappointed. But if I only chose one, I like the 1995 one the best and it is the most fleshed out. In real life, it's likely that far more than 3 languages are spoken in the Ferengi galactic empire or whatever. But I only am going to work on Ferengi Languages for a short period of time, so I'll just roll them up into one for this project.

The original Klingon Dictionary says that the dialect or language of Klingon presented in that book was actually just that of the current emperor. And that in another year or two, another emperor would take over or be elected and everyone would adopt the dialect or language of that emperor. For the sake of simplicity, though, Klingons just always seem to speak Klingon or it's actually left ambiguous. Which I think is a bit of a shame but I suppose it's less hassle for the show's creative team and easier on the budget not to hire a dedicated and able conlanger, if such really even exist. In reality, there would be a ton of Klingon languages all over the place and it would be a mess.

And they might or might not write in an alphabet. I think the odds are good, though, they'd be writing in some logographic writing system, the sort I specialize in the study in. The alphabet maybe gained popularity because everything was hand-written and it's easier to just write everything in mostly 20 or so letters. But it's not entirely clear and it wasn't only that because it hasn't caught on in China or Japan. But now that we have printing and personal computers, plus a much larger world population than ever, probably "things will deteriorate" and we'll all be back to logographic writing systems before you know it. For any number of typical reasons which just boil down to laziness and comfort. Already, punctuation and capitalization rules and traditional grammar rules are absurdly complex compared to what we see in ancient writing systems and written languages. And in a manner of absurd excess complexity already comparable to Classical Chinese spelling and Modern Chinese spellings. Though not really that much comparable. Anything we have going on today could easily just permanently go out of the window in the future. The many c 1960s assumptions of Star Trek, if you ever take time to study them in depth, which I have, are very ignorant and even take a lot of cues from older works also informed by an inexact grasp of the height to technology at the time. Though not a really bad grasp, mind you. Not that it's a big deal.

...

I came on to read what Kekemeis and the others wrote and see if they found anything else out online about Ferengi Languages. Though I almost did not, my schedule and situation is not such that I should risk being discouraged should there be any thoughtless troll responses.
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Re: Star Trek Ferengi Language by Timothy Miller and David Salo from 1995

Post by elemtilas »

Bob wrote: 14 Aug 2020 04:28 I came on to read what Kekemeis and the others wrote and see if they found anything else out online about Ferengi Languages. Though I almost did not, my schedule and situation is not such that I should risk being discouraged should there be any thoughtless troll responses.
Who is "Kekemeis"???

If you mean Khemehekis, I can assure you, he is the kindest, most thoughtful & charming of all the trolls here. :mrgreen:
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Re: Star Trek Ferengi Language by Timothy Miller and David Salo from 1995

Post by Bob »

Reply to previous replies to this one:

The X-Sampa didn't end up being that big of a deal, if they were using that. It's all explained clearly enough for me. That was for the 1995 one.
sangi39 wrote: 04 Aug 2020 03:02 ...

sangi39, 03 Aug 2020:

I'm just doing this language because Yuri my Okrand Atlantean Language facebook group admin found it a few years ago and I've been somewhat wanting to study it. Oh, it was fun, I read it and have been posting commentary the last couple days. Maybe nothing super-phenomenal. I've read so very much, I can generally tell what other people have read when they're making up their conlangs and writing associated texts. And I specialize in ancient and historical languages, so it's a strain because there's few to no other conlangers of my sort - and there are few to no language scientists of my sort, either, or even comparable scholars. That's niche research and amateur scholarship for you: Do what you want, all the discoveries are yours though people will probably steal them.

But more so, I've spent the last few months studying and translating into Okrand Atlantean, by the Okrand who made Klingon, and so the past 2 weeks and for maybe another week yet have been studying and translating, quickly, other "Okrand Languages": Klingon, Vulcan, Mutsun. Then I'll add this one.

I have studied a lot of languages and writing systems the past 15 years, notably conlangs from famous books, tv, and movies, so I gain insight and further claim to scholarly mastery by studying related languages, writing systems, people, topics, etc.

I forgot how much input David Salo had on it and thought it was more. Now I'm disappointed about that. Oh, but I remember he's not actually that good with non-Indo-European language phenomena or even regular language science language presentation (interlinear glossing), so this is probably a good thing. I saw a familiar name, though, and it made it more interesting.

I don't remember why or if I thought it was a well-made conlang, these Ferengi Languages. But I think that of Vulcan and have explained that at some length. Maybe I had a memory of the 1995 Ferengi conlang looking well-made when I read whatever I read of it 2 or so years ago.

I probably already addressed these questions in this thread.

Its importance to me is its place in conlanging in general. Without trying very hard, it seems that no one else has used these languages "for much". And I study that sort of thing. You know, it seems from what I've found online and elsewhere that there's no record of anyone studying or working with the vast majority of conlangs from famous or once-famous books, tv, movies, and history. They just get mentioned in lists in books and blog posts. So I think I do the conlanging community a great service. But it appears that most conlangers, no knowing these conlangs much, assume that I have done very little. And it's like that with my other specializations, people assume that because others have not already made the discoveries which I claim or because others do not already study it, that there's nothing to it. But they're totally wrong.

I've studied conlanging taken as a big whole, and then my specializations of it, now for 15 whopping years. If people knew what they were doing, they'd roll out the red carpet when I show up. [ This part removed by me for some reason. ]

But in a month or two, I'll be back to my non- conlangs, my natural languages, and for these I generally have a supportive scholarly community, mostly over facebook groups. Though what I do still seems mostly unique. I don't think anyone studies all 50 or so logographic writing systems comparatively, which is very essential to studying any one of them very well, but rather there's a handful of people out there who go in depth with some of these writing systems. And most of them are not available on facebook or online and do not answer emails. Though I know at least one who does, almost all the time. Maybe he doesn't count, though. ( Professor Edward Shaughnessy of the University of Chicago, what you do is really astounding. ) I think he has a hired team of people to respond for him and get dictated replies or something. Then again, it is possible that what he studies is so obscure, almost no one ever even writes. La dee dah.
Linguifex wrote: 05 Aug 2020 18:40 ...
Linguifex, 05 Aug 2020:

I'll do what I can but I ain't Superman, bro. I've been trying the whole time, honest.

I got something to say about that, though: I've been studying 15 years and if you're really into language science (linguistics) or anthropology, you got to be ready to wade through some difficult writings and real life situations. If you want to be any good.

My priority is more my website articles and my facebook posts. You know, like, I can read all Romance and Germanic languages at a very advanced level and lots of Chinese and Japanese now too. Then a couple of others. That's hard hard work, on top of all the other research I've done. I've been all over the world on a tight tight budget. To the world's poorest countries, man, stuff you can't even imagine. But no serious poisonous snake or spider bites, my good fortune!

Maybe this is an anthropology thing, actually. Maybe y'all are mostly amateur language scientists and don't get me not following protocol.

Their loss. I can't do anyone else's research for them and I got my own priorities.

sangi39 wrote: 04 Aug 2020 03:02 ...
sangi39, Post 05 Aug 2020:

Huh, okay.

I compare the UN to a political party. They're both like political parties, so it didn't seem that much of a leap to me. Then it's a broader, open-ended joke that than.

I hadn't looked at the different Ferengi Languages when you wrote this reply.
Khemehekis wrote: 06 Aug 2020 01:51 ...

Khemehekis, 05 Aug 2020:

You know, I'm usually on facebook groups so this is hard because I might be the least anonymous person here because I link to my facebook groups and websites. And it's like everything written on this group is written in stone forever and forever associated with the very obscure conlangs that I study. Including posts by anyone who *doesn't entirely get it*.

But if you go to my website and check out the major groups I admin and spend a week or two there, you can pretty much figure out what's going on.
clawgrip wrote: 11 Aug 2020 08:33 ...


clawgrip, 11 Aug 2020:

Well, when I say I'm not that into something, you have to consider that I've spent the last 10 years doing ground-breaking research into the comparative study of all 50 or so known logographic writing systems. So if I say "I'm not much into something", well, I might be the world expert of that thing and might even have surpassed all known scholars of all time, just with one hand tied behind my back.

I have a BA Linguistics from Michigan State University, in case you didn't read any of my other posts. So I'm really into linguistics but my almost-unknown specializations in particular.

Actually, it's possible that no one has ever know more about Star Trek conlangs and pseudo-conlangs than myself. But I could do a lot more if I wanted to.

Earlier this year, I thought I might work on Klingon for a bit around the annual Jewish day of mourning for The Fall of Jerusalem to the Romans in 70 CE. Because 2 years ago, I chose to study and translate texts from mostly Ancient Greek into Klingon regarding that topic. Mostly because I owned the relevant books and it sounded interesting. It turns out it's vastly under-studied, maybe too sad.

So far I've given myself 2 weeks and am going to give another week yet. I've done Klingon, Mutsun, Vulcan, and now am doing Ferengi, and will put the translations online at the end and then the grammar expansions and notes, hand-written, a month or two later when I finish the Okrand Atlantean work.

I did all this because that's how it fits into my scholarly schedule and idea of what I want to do and when and what I feel like and how things are going.

In a nutshell, when I posted comments on conlangs in the past on some other conlangers website or elsewhere, I think I said that I don't like such complicated or exotic grammars, I like more useable stuff. And everyone said I was too critical then, like c 2007 and c 2015. So the last few months, I was totally not critical and very encouraging and was surprised that some people were jumping down my throat. See, if you're not a regular visitor, you got nothing.

But I'm busy and got to go soon.


sangi39, 11 Aug 2020:

Okay, I read this. I've been trying to not mention Zompist Bboard the last 24 hours but now I'll keep at it. Just give me a little patience here.

It's hard not to mention them at all because people ask about what I've done about conlanging in the past and that's part of it, posting to Zompist Bboard.

sangi39, 11 Aug 2020:

Okay, I read that. I'm going to to try to remember it.
masako wrote: 12 Aug 2020 04:24 ...
masako, 11 Aug 2020:

There's apparently at least 3 Ferengi Languages conlangs and or pseudo-conlangs made by creators and fans: 1995, 2017 A, 2017 B, named here by date of analysis. See my later replies.

Yeah, I'm going to get to things like that, even the rain thing.

What is the phonology of the 1995 one like? It's got a lot of neat and exotic sounds. It looked realistic. In fact, though the conlang seemed much influenced by Klingon, it seemed in many ways more like a human language whereas Klingon is supposed to defy human language universals while still being a language. But it could have a phonology which is rare or not attested for human languages, maybe even impossible somehow. But there wasn't anything like that that stood out to me and I don't specialize in that sort of thing, though I've seen a few rare phonemes and allophones in my day. I'm not all into that sort of comparative phonology typology theory, though. I'm actually really into morphology but do a lot of a certain sort of phonology for my research on all 50 known logographic writing systems, stuff like puns and just historical linguistics sound changes and what the phonemes and allophones are and it's complicated.

Linguifex, 11 Aug 2020: Okay.

masako, 11 Aug 2020: Okay.

Linguifex, 11 Aug 2020: Okay.

To both: See my later replies to this thread.

masako, 12 Aug 2020:

Yes, I just did with this post but I don't have much time online and am always very tired and distracted when I get online.

Khemehekis, 12 Aug 2020:

Oh, I think I've already said too much considering I'm not on facebook and can't just delete whatever I wrote and even entire threads should I want to.

You want to talk on facebook and keep it a secret? I'm the top admin of the only Okrand Atlantean Language facebook group.

masako, 13 Aug 2020:

We haven't gotten along in the past so much, but if you'll say to keep it confidential, you too just go over to the facebook group Okrand Atlantean Language and find the top admin and private message him, who is me.

elemtilas, 13 Aug 2020:

:( You got to always be on guard on the internet against thoughtless trolls.

...

Tagging people in this website, vs. facebook, makes me feel like I'm taking it back to the Stone Age, y'all.

Sorry if I didn't tag anyone. I ran over my time budget for this time.
Last edited by Bob on 14 Aug 2020 19:10, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Star Trek Ferengi Language by Timothy Miller and David Salo from 1995

Post by Bob »

Essay: Star Trek Writers made a Very Sophisticated Conlang or Pseudo-Conlang for the 2002 Episode "Acquisition": Discovered by Me

( Quick background: I have a BA Linguistics from Michigan State University in 2009 and for 15 years have specialized in the study of ancient languages and of language decipherment. So for me all this discussion and talk of discoveries is bread and butter. Notably, the last 2 years have seen me and my students undertake extensive work studying the Elamite Languages corpuses, which is not really so well attested but otherwise challenging for decipherment and interesting with reference to linguistics typology and writing system typology. The later of which I specialize in but almost no one else does and which almost no one else takes seriously. But I get the impression that conlangers are not used to this sort of thing and may think I'm a stupid amateur conlanger who doesn't at all know what he's talking about. But beware, I notice from replies that people are not carefully reading what I write. So do yourself read it carefully and not read the replies of others who have neglected careful reading. )

CONTENTS

star trek writers made a very sophisticated conlang or pseudo-conlang for the 2002 episode "acquisition": discovered by me

what i discovered and what amino website author discovered

who made the original 2002 ferengi conlang or pseudo-conlang?

when will i present my own translations into a derivative of these ferengi languages?

when will i present my own decipherment contribution and translations into a derivative of these ferengi languages?

i petition a moderator to make a new thread about this important and distinct discovery

further explanation of my recent months focusing on the study of "famous conlangs"

a summary of all i have studied in my life, and my specializations as a scholar

my own grand vision of conlanging

epilogue: so what is the 2002 ferengi language like?


STAR TREK WRITERS MADE A VERY SOPHISTICATED CONLANG OR PSEUDO-CONLANG FOR THE 2002 EPISODE "ACQUISITION": DISCOVERED BY ME

Wow! Well, I have made a minor discovery: Probably the authors of the 2002 Star Trek tv episode "Acquisition", I think probably with help by a conlanger, maybe not Marc Okrand, made a conlang or pseudo-conlang of some complexity, for that episode. It could be multiple conlangs or pseudo-conlangs which are similar.

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Ac ... _(episode)

( But wait! It's also possible that this is a hoax by someone and that the conlang or pseudo-conlang of the actual tv episode is distinct from what the Amino website author says she found on the Memory Alpha wiki. Offhand, I suspect David Salo of such a thing given his 1995 show of interest in the Ferengi language and his thorough knowledge of my abilities as a decipherer of conlangs and my knowledge of him as a conlang trickster, mostly from around 2015. )

So it's like the Star Trek creators twice, in episodes "Little Green Men" and "Acquisition", got their writers to provide so much of two (or more) "Ferengi Languages" such that each episode is like a miniature "The Klingon Dictionary" which is nowhere explained yet perhaps with leaked hints as to its decipherment (on the Memory Alpha and Memory Beta Star Trek wikis websites). But it hasn't been until 2020 that someone worked the whole thing out to its maximum extent to realize what might have happened. At least so far as I've found from recently quick internet searches and no academic or other scholarly literature searches. Which, by the way, is typical for conlangs and pseudo-conlangs in famous books, movies, and tv, and is the usual method of conlang presentation of "Game of Thrones" conlanger David Peterson. (Though I object to the method and think that each time they should present a grammar and complete glossed corpus of the language online for the sake of promotion of science and for history. But this method is probably the result of historical factors itself.)

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Li ... _(episode)

...

WHAT I DISCOVERED AND WHAT AMINO WEBSITE AUTHOR DISCOVERED

I used the "Amino website" "Part 2" grammar of this language by a woman using the internet pseudonym "GeekyDreams" to make my own examination of the conlang or pseudo-conlang. My own abilities with deciphering languages and expanding conlangs and pseudo-conlangs far exceed those of the author.

https://aminoapps.com/c/star-trek/page/ ... zkJoNG7Q4j

https://aminoapps.com/c/star-trek/page/ ... Evr3Yexv4X

( I propose otherwise calling "GeekyDreams" as "Kim Douglas" because the username GeekyDreams is awkward in writing. Or "Amino website author", though that obscures that she's a unicorn "female conlanger", which some of us scholars of conlanging have read about.)

That said, she "GeekyDreams" is brilliant and a very compelling writer. From evidence, statements and word choice, in the "Part 1" and "Part 2" of her work on the Ferengi Languages, GeekyDreams was in late 2017 an undergraduate or graduate student of linguistics at some university in the USA, maybe California, who says she is a native speaker of some foreign language, the text pointing toward Italian most. Though Spanish would be a more typical one. Though her written English is such that she's certainly a native speaker of English also, though I caught at least one tell-tale error pointing toward bilingualism with some language like Italian or Spanish. It's possible she had a lot of help writing it but I doubt it. ( I have teaching experience in ESL English as a Second Language and am a native speaker of English, and some 20 years' experience analyzing the speech and writing of non-native English speakers. Which I don't recommend. I was going to include an appendix essay but thought it might distract from what I think are very important scientific achievements. )

From my Okrand Atlantean language community, a facebook group that's 20 years old (formerly a Yahoo Group), we have Lir Soracia, an American who seems to have an Italian name. She was a founding member of the group. I was made head admin, Paul Sherrill, now professor of music somewhere on the East Coast, by its former head admin around 2007. Offhand, I suspect that she is "GeekyDreams" just because of my own experience researching conlangers. I have otherwise found online extensive writing on conlangs by Lir Soracia and she's very into it. I would be crushed if she actually wishes to remain anonymous for this, though, because I was so excited a few months ago when she re-joined the group as part of a coronavirus lockdown associated flood of new members from the new and lively facebook group Atlantis: The Lost Empireposting. So I think I will ask her about it.

I don't know many conlangers and have never spent a lot of time hanging out with any of its online communities. I have my own on facebook group and it's got 1000 members but almost no one posts or replies but me. And I've done a lot of work on conlangs over the past 15 years but I work a lot more on natural languages and their writing systems. I met a bunch of the admins (There's was about 5 head admins.) and members on the top facebook groups back in 2015 but was exiled by the admins for being a good and ethical admin of one of those groups. I would not mistreat other admins, members, or other members of facebook, when commanded. But my time is limited so I have rarely gone on any internet conlanging community to present my work and share my now- vast experience and skills.

The past 15 or so years, I have just spent a lot of free time researching mostly the world's 50 known logographic writing systems, the decipherable and indecipherable ones. I don't think there's been anyone like me for that, ever. Somehow people resent when I say that, which I don't think makes much sense overall. If I was really good at some other obscure thing, like doing tricks on some obscure sort of bicycle, like a penny-farthing, people would not get so up in arms. People worldwide have a somewhat Stone Age mentality toward languages and writing systems, holding them in what I would describe as a sort of religious awe, even while thinking their own understanding to be scientific. At least, it's very much like this in the USA where almost no one seriously studies any foreign language, ever. Most people where I live act like you're a fairy tale creature if you study foreign languages.

WHO MADE THE ORIGINAL 2002 FERENGI CONLANG OR PSEUDO-CONLANG?

Probably the conlang or pseudo-conlang was made by the teleplay authors of the 2002 tv episode "Acquisition" of the series "Star Trek Enterprise", seemingly a French married couple "Maria and Andre/ Jacquemetton. The language has several words which seem to be based on re-arranged French words. Which was maybe used as a creator's mark, though amateur conlangers also often do that.

The "Part 2" conlang or pseudo-conlang was very well made. I found GeekyDreams' 2017 analysis and expansion of the conlang or pseudo-conlang material to be much less sophisticated than what I myself would have done. But for the sake of fun and goofy, I just went with it. If anyone's read it, my work just builds on it. Why not?

That said, I could probably spend more time carefully comparing each sentence in the corpus and trying to figure out yet more things. But I'm not that into it. Maybe no one ever will be.

...

WHEN WILL I PRESENT MY OWN TRANSLATIONS INTO A DERIVATIVE OF THESE FERENGI LANGUAGES?

SO, in about a week I hope to make a translation in a combination of these three "Ferengi Languages":

1) of that 1997 grammar dictionary by Timothy Miller of Florida, of the 2017 web,
2) of the 2017 "Part 1" analysis by GeekyDreams of the episode Little Green Men, and
3) of the 2017 "Part 2" analysis by GeekyDreams of the episode Acquisition.

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic ... fUA0FztqpE

https://aminoapps.com/c/star-trek/page/ ... zkJoNG7Q4j

https://aminoapps.com/c/star-trek/page/ ... Evr3Yexv4X


For short, Ferengi C, Ferengi A, and Ferengi B. (Like Linear A and Linear B, actually writing systems, and the Tocharian A and Tocharian B languages.) I like Ferengi C the best. Mind you, I have actually done probably very ground-breaking research on Linear B and what I think are closely related writing systems. Notably, I think I discovered that probably Cretan Hieroglyphic, Linear A, Linear B, and then a few others are all very similar writing systems related somehow to one another, and are all quite similar to the deciphered writing system of Linear B. But it's tricky to get at because you need vast experience doing comparative study of all 50 known logographic writing systems. And it's still not a certain thing beyond that owing to lack of bilingual texts.

And then I also want to include what else may be gathered, analyzed, and expanded by me, which is on the Memory Alpha wiki website and Memory Beta wiki website, top Star Trek wikis.

...

WHEN WILL I PRESENT MY OWN DECIPHERMENT CONTRIBUTION AND TRANSLATIONS INTO A DERIVATIVE OF THESE FERENGI LANGUAGES?

And then in about a month or two, when I put online all my work on Okrand Atlantean from the past few months', I'll share my own notes and grammar expansions for the Ferengi Languages, as well as the past 2 weeks' work on Vulcan Languages, Mutsun from California (a natlang or actual language, of the Yok-Utian stock), and the famous Klingon language, also by Okrand like his Atlantean for the Disney 2001 movie Atlantis: The Lost Empire.

Of course, don't be disappointed, I should be notorious for not finishing projects and taking years to get my final products online.

Here's most of what I've managed to share with the world, anywhere, outside of facebook posts which are usually more conversational and less of definitive presentations of research:

https://anylanguageatall411.blogspot.co ... w=flipcard

...

I PETITION A MODERATOR TO MAKE A NEW THREAD ABOUT THIS IMPORTANT AND DISTINCT DISCOVERY

I think this is such a big deal, I will petition a moderator that I can make a separate thread just for it. This thread, it turns out, is actually about 3 different languages, we can call them Ferengi A, B, and C. So that would just be a thread about the accomplishments of the Star Trek teleplay writers (and other suspected creators) of Ferengi B.
sangi39 wrote: 04 Aug 2020 03:02 ...

...

FURTHER EXPLANATION OF MY RECENT MONTHS FOCUSING ON THE STUDY OF "FAMOUS CONLANGS"

Part of the reason why I've spent the last few months doing extensive translations into Atlantean, and did likewise for Klingon back in 2018 and Pakuni earlier this year, spending several months on grammar and vocabulary expansions, translations, and associated language science and interdisciplinary studies, is that either I am the first and only skilled person to ever decipher and work on them extensively (Atlantean, Pakuni). And it's a very grueling and draining process that takes months of free time, at a time. And that's part of why I myself have documented, deciphered, and "developed" so many conlangs and psuedo-conlangs from famous books, tv, and movies, and otherwise studied those deciphered by others. ( Conlangs or pseudo-conlangs in: The Day the World Stood Still, Forbidden Planet, Dark Crystal, Blade (also by Pakuni creator UCLA Linguistics Professor Victoria Fromkin), all those from the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs (popular American early 1900s to 1950s science fiction author, still famous for "Tarzan"), and then so many others I can't remember right now. Search my websites and facebook group for lists. )

A SUMMARY OF ALL I HAVE STUDIED IN MY LIFE, AND MY SPECIALIZATIONS AS A SCHOLAR

But then there's also an element of drama and minor fame to it which is pervasive in much of my studies:

Few language scientists study ancient languages - so I do it.

No language scientists study all logographic writing systems comparatively - so I do it.

About 10 people have ever done extensive work on the 1600s Massachusett language and it's famous as the language of the First Thanksgiving Dinner Indians which Americans all learn about in elementary school - so I do it.

Nobody has deciphered tons of conlangs and pseudo-conlangs from very famous books, tv, and movies - so I do it and have done tons of it. And even done extensive translations into them.

( Likewise for studying the deciphered and available conlangs from famous books, tv, and movies. )

I also specialize in all 20 or so Ancient Biblical languages, which almost no one has ever done, plus Bible translation, mostly for English - so I do it.

When I was in college, I was given the impression that I had to specialize. But when I found out that what I wanted to specialize in was not so marketable, I decided to not become an academic but just spend as much time as was prudent applying my degree and self-training to my few specializations. My 3rd and last major specialization is in the anthropology of all beliefs to ever exist taken as a whole, but it's so broad a topic that I have spent more focused energy on mostly Logographic Studies and then after that Ancient Biblical Languages Studies.

And then some few people are happy that I do these translations but I'm actually doing it more for public outreach for my research and the promotion of language science (my prefered term for "linguistics", as in phonology and morphology, not polyglotism). It's all part of me being a language scientist specializing in conlangs in general and, in particular, conlangs and pseudo-conlangs and such from famous books, tv, and movies and historical and anthropological ones. I want to share what I've found and make contributions.

Oh, it would be nice some time to do extensive translations in this 2002 Ferengi Language, Ferengi B, but I've already spent a lot of time the past few years making sizeable translations in Klingon and Pakuni and Atlantean, and wish to finish at least more of the Pakuni. So I've had enough for about 20 years of that and really should wrap up my work on 1600s Massachusett and just attend to studying my logographic writing systems. "Remember, Caesar, thou art mortal."

MY OWN GRAND VISION OF CONLANGING

My view of conlanging seems to be very rare, maybe unique, but pioneering: I see it as the wave of the future, a method to be adopted in the future to help language scientists to better get new ideas about language science and the presentation of languages. I consider most of my own conlangs to be experiments. It might take 500 years to catch on, though, people are quite slow. But I forsee all that, am willing to tell people to some degree, and give a good example as a responsible scholar and scientist, trying to be an excellent one.


EPILOGUE: SO WHAT IS THE 2002 FERENGI LANGUAGE LIKE?

Well, what's more certain about the language is only accessible where morphemes or similar-looking morphemes occur twice or more and seem to correspond with the meanings of the morphemes in the English prose translations. Which are all, unfortunately, not sufficiently described for origin by the author of the article and may actually be creations of a third party and hoaxes of whatever conlang or pseudo-conlang is in the actual episode. This just now occurs to me.

Of course, to check that, I would have to myself document the conlang or pseudo-conlang of the episode and compare it to what the author of the Amino website "Part 2" article got seemingly from the Memory Alpha star trek wiki. Which is way more work than I want to put into it.

But I might do it now because this is so intriguing. I actually never documented by ear the many (5?) conlangs and pseudo-conlangs in the 1980s Jim Henson classic "Dark Crystal", either. But probably in about 5 years, maybe 10. I do have students who might take it on. No, wait, they're mostly interested in natural languages and writing systems. Hmm.

So anyway, it might have a very clear IRREALIS marker, maybe "tenda". But more notable is its pronominal system. Here, I had to look it up, I can't remember this stuff off-hand:

Actually, most of what's below was figured out by GeekyDreams. I make the claim of having examined it and then re-examined the whole corpus knowing what I know, and of seeing more re-occurences and possible conlang or pseudo-conlang / language phenomena.

[ SUBJECT, OBJECT, "GENITIVE", ( DO NOT, IMPERATIVE?)
( The above is all capitalized but not an essay section title.

they: IRR, IRR, LIR, *MIRR
you: IRRA, *IRRA, *LIRRA, MIRRA

* unattested but here reconstructed form

IRR based pronouns remind me of Elamite, actually, though this may be just a coincidence. This conlang or pseudo-conlang is from 2002 and my own work on Elamite Languages if just from the past 2 years.

Other notable morphemes for the corpus.

VOY see
( It's better as "see" than as "you". )
( These are more speculative: )
EKRAJHN-VOY scans-(seen)
LA-VOY he-(see / look like)
VOY[-]ET see-first
[ ] : This is used for an inserted hyphen. The rest are actually in the corpus.
( This may be a reference to the Voynich Manuscript, which I think is an elaborate sort of hoax which is asemic writing structured somewhat to look like actual writing and an exotic language. Though it's quite obvious it's asemic, long words repeat themselves three times even without much change, a telltale sign of gibberish or asemic writing. Among other repetitions of sequences which are within visual proximity to one another yet which contrast with those known from natural languages. )

SOU be worth
SOU-TAH be:worth-she
SOU-N be:worth-probably

TAH she, it
LA he
( Both occur as prefixes and suffixes.)

It's possible that words associated with negation have -OU- in the middle of them but then change their initial and final consonants for unknown reasons. I just made up that it reflects the noun class of the object, just to be exotic.

The English word "know" does not seem to correspond ever to a single word for "know" in this 2002 Ferengi Language. Which may be a parody of how German has two words for "known" (people or things). It probably is, considering the sophistication of the rest of the corpus.

I really suspect it's a pseudo-conlang designed to be bewildering and amusing. So a sort of jokelang. Again, I think the Voynich Manuscript is like this and I have examined it at length and made a full review of the (often incompetent and by non-language scientists) academic literature.
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Re: Star Trek Ferengi Language by Timothy Miller and David Salo from 1995

Post by Bob »

"ABOUT THE MOHAWKS AND THE BEES"

Someone asked about this but I don't have time to tag them.

Yeah, but then about me being Mohawk by blood, it's actually like 5% from the 1700s. Which is controversial because a lot of Native Americans on facebook groups, from around the world, do not think 5% is enough to be Native American. But I'm a scholar of historic Native American ideas and this is 1800s Blood Quantum Theory. The older concept of Native American identity is that it's not about blood but something the chief and or tribe gives, with initiation procedures and such. But a lot of Native Americans on facebook groups consider people with lower % of Native American blood to be Native American. But it's more of an East Coast of North America thing where there's been more historic blood mixture of Native American peoples with Black and White people. And I've done probably unique research on this and very few people have a very good understanding of this situation. I suspect that most White and Black Americans have some Native American blood due to public and mostly hidden "marriage". If you read letters and journals from the 1600s, they probably "interacted" a lot more than the official narrative would have you think. There was a lot of "crazy times" back then.

But my Mohawk blood comes from marriage. That part of the family is French and lived in Canada.

So, if you're interested, I have to be careful what all I say and do on the Native American facebook groups (mostly history, languages, specific tribes) because of all of the above. So I study it a bit and take hints. Fortunately, I had an almost 100% Mohawk mentor in high school with whom I spent a ton of time. ( But apparently they're mostly between here SE Michigan and New York City, in some cities in Canada and New York State.) Plus, a close Oneida friend in college (also North Iroquoian) and another Alaskan Indian one (I never asked which tribe or forgot). And they told me a lot. Plus, what I've read and the last 3 years reading on facebook, plus other experiences, and I get some idea of what's going on and what to do.

But Native Americans and New World Indigenous all have very different mindsets and worldviews (anthropologists call this culture or non-material culture). And it comes out on the facebook groups. Also, the US government's been out to get them more or less since c 1550 and a lot of other mostly Whites, even up to today. So a lot of Native American peoples want to be left alone and think you're going to mess things up if you're White. Plus, there's also beliefs about White people and different things which have to be studied and even suspected. And they're not going to explain stuff like that, like divination or omens or such.

I think it's okay if I say this here. I prefer facebook where you can delete parts of your conversations if you want later. I don't want to go all expose and anthropologist on this and embarass anyone, though. Some Native American peoples are only like 25 people, then some are 10,000 but not as centrally organized in comparison to the countries they live in or such.

...

And then the other identity idea I was talking about relates to (maybe obscure or rare in the West) ideas about marriage and living for extended periods of time overseas. You know, "First comes love, then comes marriage ..."

"Care for some la paz bachoy?" It's a local dish of like noodles in soup with bits of pork and some cut up green onions. La Paz is a district in a city and then I forget what bachoy is but Hiligaynon doesn't regularly have a ch sound. It means "The Peace" in Spanish and may refer to WWII. So it might be a Chinese word, but I have no idea what dialect. Could be Cantonese.

I mentioned it because it came up earlier. I recall now that second generation plus Americans get very uptight about their ethnic identities or anything like that, in part because they don't pay it much attention and they're worried about job discrimination for "being weird". Which usually ends up causing Americans to never study foreign languages, never take them seriously, and never use them beyond K-12 or college. I have trouble keeping track of that sort of thing but there's almost no tolerance for me where I am having something other than the majority viewpoint. People just seem to have no idea. It's better closer to the big cities. It's all a lot of lip service and justification for thievery and mistreatment of people, is what it it all is. Nice words and a kick in the back aren't much for help. Fortunately, the meaning of words is what I'm all about.
Bob
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Re: Star Trek Ferengi Language by Timothy Miller and David Salo from 1995

Post by Bob »

SOME SONGS AND DISCUSSION OF THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF WEALTH AND ESL IN ASIA

When I do posts about languages and writing systems I'm studying, I like to include songs that have some thematic relevance and which I listen to in between or during studying or writing.

my love, westlife, with lyrics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDYCXoa12xA

This song was very popular in Asia around 2010 and maybe still among students of English. The most popular English language band then was Michael Learns to Rock, which is a band from maybe Sweden that nobody's heard of in The West. Their songs are notably very ESL, the English is not quite entirely there and the concepts do not entirely translate either.

And ESL is like that, almost nobody really wants what various standard Englishes are, they want their own peoples' common wrong ideas about what standard Englishes are. And foreign language learning in general is like this.

It's notable a song about an afterlife or something. But to me it's just some obscure but very popular and random schmaltzy mellow ballad from or associated with Asia. Sure enough, Westlife is from Ireland. It's possible their take on English and things are distinct still from what you generally get associated with the UK. If so, I never noticed it in the language. It's apparent otherwise.

Also, when you're an ESL student in or from Asia, the lyrics don't matter that much if it sounds nice and you recognize a few words. This one talks about skies that are blue. That's a real feeling of accomplishment if you're an ESL student. Never mind that nobody's even heard the song outside of Asia. In general, Asians find the songs that are most popular in the USA to be disagreeable on various levels, lyrics included if they could understand them.


...

Oh, but here's one more relevant to the themes of Ferengi, that of questionable wealth and business ethics.

ABBA-Money Money Money Lyrics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uP0sC_s5EfE

See, though, but this song is not especially popular in Asia, by which I mean East Asia and Southeast Asia. Maybe, Japan, though. That's just what I hear, don't blame me for say it. Ah ha ha ha. No, I say all this in jest.

What I read of the Ferengi online and in my books is actually quite scary, it's a hard language to work with. Where do thieves walk when they step off the gallows? There are some ideas in "Three Worlds According to King Ruang" from Medieval Siam (a very large text, not in Pali, either, but Middle Thai or Old Thai). I wish I had it in a bilingual version! I found one for "The Song of Roland" before the plague year began, though. Mind you, I read a lot of ancient texts. Not a lot of living thieves in the old days, folks. Or so they'd have you think from what we get from them in writing. It's also hard work reading that sort of stuff, let me tell you.

Ah, which reminds me. I forgot earlier to say that Ferengi A is like Georgian for phonology whereas Ferengi B is like Thai whereas Ferengi C is like I think Italian. At least, from how it's written. I haven't listened to any of the audio. No time.
Bob
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Re: Star Trek Ferengi Language by Timothy Miller and David Salo from 1995

Post by Bob »

Here's the facebook post images I came up with for the my most recent essay about the Ferengi Languages. It's the title card from the episode. Making post images is good because there's a photos only view of posts. Also, because I study all logographic writing systems, I have studied a tremendous amount of comparative iconography and art history. And a lot of archaeology. Alas, these posts all do not even involve logographic writing systems much. I generally have a repugnance for anything involving an alphabet or any non-logographic writing system. It gets like that, you get used to it.

Image

Image

Image: C. 500 BC Ancient Chinese coins.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhou_dynasty_coinage
Bob
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Re: Star Trek Ferengi Language by Timothy Miller and David Salo from 1995

Post by Bob »

People are very kind to me here on Conlang Bulletin Board.

Would anyone like for me to do a post about a Classical Chinese text I'm studying? I am now studying from the gigantic, new bilingual translation of the 200s BCE "Lotus Sutra" text from Ancient India translated way back when into Classical Chinese.

I would make it a separate thread.

What does anyone want to hear about it? Maybe grammar?

I presented what I study on a certain other bulletin board and was asked to make some posts proving it. I linked to my website and did some posts about logographic writing systems in their natural languages forum. Almost no one responded. How can I know if anyone had read what I wrote? I tagged the people who asked, as best I could. I got the impression then that people did not care. But other conlang bulletin boards, so at least one is.

It is very hard work learning Classical Chinese and then doing a great deal of reading in it. But "You get what you put in," I find, in general and in particular.
Bob
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Re: Star Trek Ferengi Language by Timothy Miller and David Salo from 1995

Post by Bob »

Update on doing translations into a language derived from these languages:

I've started typing up idiomatic drafts of The Rules of Acquisition and completed work toward the 178 words for "rain", though I'd have to computer-generate the actual Ferengi words. Which I probably will, using a quick way.

I'm deciding on leaning toward the phonology of Ferengi B (from the 2017 Amino website, Part 2, episode "Acquisition"). But I've done studies of them all and want to approach new words with an eye to all but especially Ferengi C (from the 1995 google documents conlang).

But I don't have much time to get into it all and hope to get a lot translated.

( It's also notable that there's so much detailed amateur research on Memory Beta and Memory Alpha. I don't think it's done by people who make the show, I think it's mostly fan-created. Star Trek fanfic and research is famous. What can I say? But it's notable that there's a consistent mindset of approaching the show like it's all internally consistent when no fiction is like that. Maybe these fans are ignoring or not talking about the more awkward topic of symbolism, humor, and fictional conventions and considerations played out in the show. Like typological allegory.

I get some sense from reading such wiki articles and examining their history pages, if accessible, of the occupations and specialized literacy of the people behind the contributions. I also actually have studied fiction over the years and its uses and relations to reality.

But I get the sense that the people on some of these internet conlanging communities spend more time reading fiction and doing things like miniature gaming than myself. I read academic literature relating to logographic writing systems and ancient languages, and moreso work with the actual ancient texts themselves. Reading actual ethnography in sufficient quantity gives one a distaste for Western fictional ethnography and the sorts of ideas to which it appeals.

I'm pushing it, but one thing to point out is that fiction is not reality but a reflection of the reality of its creators and majority audience. And understandings of fiction vary a great deal among regions and sociolinguistic groups (demographics, wealth, etc). )

Making a draft idiomatic skeleton is difficult because foreign languages are not good matches for English, especially when it comes to proverb conventions. But I also would want to not disappoint the fans, as if very many would be interested in my work. But that's not entirely the point, the point is bringing science and my specialization to non-scientists and to scientists, and setting a good example as a scholar.

So I've been studying a lot of 1923 glossed Lhota Naga (Tibetan) recently, a little Kutenai (Native American, north Montana: Isolate). And we'll see what I come up with. The past 2 weeks, I did translations and expansions of Klingon and Vulcan with a thought for human and alien idioms. Now I'll try Ferengi.

I'm leaning toward polysynthesis because Vulcan is very analytic and Klingon doesn't do noun incorporation or very bizaare subject object noun class agreement markers. But I only have much experience with the polysynthetic 1600s Massachusett language. But I'm limited by the limited choices of creators of the 1995 grammar and the two 2017 grammars, so to speak. I'm going to try to keep with at least some of the subordination and coordination grammatical complexity that I made and mostly applied to Vulcan.

But proverbs are not grammar rich compared to myths, so I'm going to have to choose some prose text. But it's a very tough choice. I might chose something in Classical Chinese because the other conlangs I've been working on this summer have had nothing for any logographic text. Though I found a lot of great historical financial terminology in a c 1990 history of the Islamic world. And or maybe just bureaucratic organizational terminology.

...

2017:
Ferengi A has a phonology that's a lot like a simplified version of Chinese, Vietnamese, and Cantonese, but without tones and with vowels probably like those in English.

Ferengi B has mostly English phonology and the words end up looking like Thai but without the vowel combination complexity.

These two are interesting because they use English, French, Greek, and maybe other Roman Alphabet spelling conventions. But I don't have time to document what is actually said in the language, like what I did when I deciphered the Barsoomian Language by Paul Frommer, the maker of the Avatar Language, Na'vi, back in like 2012 or so. It was a far more interesting project than Na'vi and yet has received far more attention from him and everyone else. Which gives you some sense of how these things go. The situation with Barsoomian was also one of orthographic complexity.

1995:
Ferengi C reminds me of Georgian with all the consonants to close together. But there's no talk of syllable rules and the phonology of words go go along with that, so much. But what do I know of everything? It's still an imitation of Klingon, even for flaws: The words are too short for realism. And I think there's still too many vowel phonemes to really be that far from English. Vulcan also notably, if I remember, has a ton of vowel phonemes.
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Re: Star Trek Ferengi Languages by 1995 Timothy Miller, David Salo, and 1995-2017 TV Show Writers and Kim Douglas

Post by Bob »

I changed the thread title from:

Star Trek Ferengi Language by Timothy Miller and David Salo from 1995

to

Star Trek Ferengi Languages by 1995 Timothy Miller, David Salo, and 1995-2017 TV Show Writers and Kim Douglas

I started it before I found the other two conlangs (actually, pseudo-conlangs or semi-conlangs).
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Re: Star Trek Ferengi Languages by 1995 Timothy Miller, David Salo, and 1995-2017 TV Show Writers and Kim Douglas

Post by Bob »

Translating the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition into A Ferengi Conlang, and Thoughts on American and International Anti-Semitism

...

Progress on Ferengi Languages Studies:

Translating "The Rules of Acquisition" is very difficult on many levels. But notably, they do not at all read like translations of actual foreign language proverbs, rules, or suggestions. And inasmuch as they do, they read like very loose and appealing translations. I have some sense of English idioms and proverb conventions.

So it's difficult to make original Ferengi versions that would both appeal to fans and satisfy a very well-read language scientist and anthropologist. Yet I'm trying to write up some commentary in my hand-written notes to explain just a small portion of what I've done. Every word and every choice, though, draws on my 15 years of extensive reading and travel.

It's a very interesting corpus, though it's very limited grammatically due to the telegraphic, short, nature of the rules.

The worldview behind the rules is not like that of an actual people, at least in how they're translated, but of a symbolic and satirical people. I would liken it most to the sort of things I encounter in myths and in thieves' cants, though these are sparsely documented. If they were realistic, they would be inverted proverbs comparable to a typical presentation technique of myths: The Trickster as Culture Hero, The Trickster as defeated or learning.

So far they end up sounding like Classical Chinese and use something like its Four Character Format. But it's just an idiomatic draft translation so far and all languages sound something like that when glossed. But it's hard for me to avoid such a format because I read a lot of Classical Chinese. And that's because there's more in Classical Chinese than written in any other language, so to speak.

It's problematic because the Ferengi seem to make some uncertain reference to Old World Jewish Stereotypes, which are similar to Old World Chinese Stereotypes. Of course, if you're going to have a people who are unethical businessfolk, where would the writers draw from? I have studied fairy tales, folklore, stereotypes, and such somewhat extensively and am somewhat sympathetic to the writers. I even study modern and recent historical Anti-Semitic ideas. And then another big concept that I think I should share here is that, even though I was a child at the time, the 1980s and 1990s were different from the late 2010s. "Seinfeld" was very popular. So probably the Ferengi were more of a dialogue piece, in all honesty, about stereotypes and actual minority characteristics. See what the Canadian author himself says in "Born to Kvetch" (a book about specialized Yiddish vocabulary and culture) and maybe its sequel "Just Say Nu".

(So it's comparable to the late 1990s film "Bamboozled" where it implies that rap music videos are a "new millenium minstrel show".)

But I don't try to make the language any like Biblical Hebrew because I actually study Biblical Hebrew a lot. Though there's also not a lot I can do because the core of the grammar has already been written twice - Timothy Miller 1995 and 2002 teleplay writers for the tv episode "Acquisition". These languages are overall more like Georgian (not Armenian!) and New Guinea / Australian.

I've really read extensively, though. All peoples to ever exist have had unethical businessfolk. It shows in the law codes, which probably were seldom implemented due to things like bribes.

I'm really only working on the language, though, because of the work of Timothy Miller and David Salo on it back in 1995 and because I have done unique studies of Klingon and Vulcan, other Star Trek associated languages, conlangs. Fans of Ferengi, past and present: These are probably the core audience for the language, if there was one. I'm also writing it, though, for fans of language science, polyglotism, and anthropology, etc. So the end result is probably not going to make anyone happy because there's such a wide drift between all these.

...

I think I know a thing or two about Slavic Jewish American, German Jewish American, Jewish European, Jewish Israeli, and even Jewish Chinese peoples. But while I'm an amateur anthropologist, I'm not a professional one so I get to say only what I think is best. So do some reading and let your imagination fill in the blanks. Maybe if we were on facebook and you gave me your confidentiality, I might say a few things and point in a few directions.

...

Aside from a little reading on the subject, though, I probably actually know Jewish Europeans and Jewish Israelis better than Jewish Americans. And maybe I know more about Slavic Jewish Americans than German Jewish Americans. And reading helps a lot with these things, I would have never guessed otherwise.

I have studied both Anti-Semitic and Pro-Semitic books and writings from just about every age. But I don't really specialize in it that much, so my reading about modern situations is spread quite thin and I'm sure I step on a few toes from time to time. I specialize in the comparative study of beliefs or ideas (including religions), from all time, so while that spreads me thin, I give more attention than most to the different beliefs and ideas out there, wrong, right, and in-between.

I also have done studies in folklore, fairy tales, and myths from Europe and from all around the world, over the past 15 years.

...

Here's some key books, though, by a Jewish Canadian, "Born to Kvetch" and "Just Say Nu", both interesting books explaining Jewish Canadian (and America?) culture, perhaps of older generations and of ancestral generations, though the study of particular Yiddish words. Yiddish is one of the "Jewish Language", scientifically said to be very similar to German, though many take offense at that being said.

I think "The Jewish Woman in America" by Baum is a good one. But I might be confusing it with a "Jewish Almanac" I picked up which is also from the 1970s.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferengi

And then the Wikipedia article - Hollywood people always lie about everything and it's been like this for decades. It's like "spin". But the reality is something else, something it even takes a very experienced scholar to even guess at.

Which is part of why the Hollywood people don't want scholars around. Because a lot of people believe the "spin" and it's probably good for business.

One possibility, with reference to the book "Born to Kvetch", is that the creators of Star Trek at the time, probably mostly Hollywood Jewish Americans, were making fun of themselves, their relatives, and friends and also profiting from ethnic stereotypes. They may have been using old ethnic stereotypes to make conversation about real life minority differences, tolerance, and annoyance. Now, I don't know all about it, but Jewish Americans and Jewish Europeans seem very distinct to me and I actually know the latter much better. I've read some books by Jewish Americans and Canadians about the different sorts of Jewish Americans. Jewish Americans seem increasingly removed from the realities of historic and modern Europe, decade by decade, and apart of their own "realities" and "The American Reality". Which is maybe refreshing yet "ignorant" to Jewish Europeans.
They seem "mostly like everybody else" and their segregation seems mostly a result of historic factors. And there seems to be a lot of variety among German Jewish Americans and Slavic Jewish Americans as to what they think about this or that. Plus, all the "ethnic groups" of the USA increasingly intermarry with others over time. And with the decades comes forgetfulness. Like those oversized glass gumballs in "The Neverending Story Part II".

If anything, history, ethnicity, identity, and foreign languages are more like weapons to Americans than anything else. People don't discuss or study them much, but if you do, you'll be punished for it in the workplace and elsewhere. Monolingualism is actually enforced in official and unofficial spheres, as is interest in anything but what the majority of people study and take interest in.

From what I've read, German Jewish Americans are the richer ones and Slavic Jewish Americans are the poorer ones. I'm not sure which type is more common in Hollywood. It could be the Slavic Jewish Americans. And the Ferengi seem to more resemble modern and historic stereotypes of German Jews and German Jewish Americans. Just a guess. There's also maybe a bit of stereotypes of both in the Ferengi.

Part of the situation is that Jewish Americans seem like almost all Americans and monolingual or closer to monolingual, whereas Jewish Europeans and Jewish Israelis are much more into polyglotism. And I'm a huge scholar of languages, popular and obscure.

In fact, among American polyglots on facebook groups, a lot seem to be Jewish American. And there are very few American polyglots on facebook groups and they're not that much into it. And there's probably a connection to recent immigration to the USA in most of those situations. For everyone else, foreign languages are tiresome and useless. Even Americans with the money to travel a lot seem only very half-hearted about studying foreign languages.

So that's what I know about it all. I study Hollywood a bit but my focus is comparative foreign language and invented language grammar and anthropology. And my specializations are all 50 or so logographic writing systems and East Asia and Southeast Asia. So I can try to explain what's going on but I might not get it 100% right.

For example, I could be way more into the study of modern or historic anti-Semitic ideas than I am. Though I do a lot of reading, most of what I read is more focused on ancient languages and sometimes obscure modern languages. I do what I can and it's enough for me. You could try other specialists to see what they have to say. I'm not even a specialist in most senses, to many people, because I'm not an academic but an amateur with a BA Linguistics. ( I like to call "Linguistics" as "Language Science" because I think that's more semantically transparent to most people.)

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The above is some ambiguous - but I would say ethical - anthropology for you. I only had some classes and my BA is in Linguistics but hey, there really aren't enough anthropologists to go around and there's plenty of places an anthropologist could never go - and many more that they'd never return from - and others that they'd never return from in one piece, so to speak. Anthropology is not sunshine and unicorns, folks.

...

And then another key thing about the Ferengi, which I have written here about earlier, is this: While there's a tendency out there to view all Star Trek as cumulative and internally-consistent, it's not made that way. So each episode and each part of each episode should be considered separately. It's not all made at once, it's loosely planned out with room for each writer to make a contribution. The result is actually a collection of mostly unrelated and ambiguous commentary on current events and ideas from around the time the episode was written and made.

And that said, while I've read some of the Ferengi lore on Star Trek Memory Alpha and Beta wikis, I try to approach the language with reference to all the real languages and real peoples that I've tried to study via the unreliable medium of ethnography and from my own amateur fieldwork. See, it's all very complex and interesting. And some of it would even be awkward to explain, if I even had the time.

But altogether how I view the Ferengi and their language, I give some further ideas above. Regarding what I want to do with the language, I want to continue the concept I applied to Vulcan and Klingon of trying to make it unlike Earth languages. Inasfar as that's even possible, given that the core of the grammar of each is already established, twofold for both even (1960s Vulcan, VLI Vulcan / 1995 Miller Ferengi, 2002 and 2017 Acquisition Ferengi). But it would also be interesting if I tried to make Ferengi a lot like most Earth languages. Because if some grammar element is rare on Earth, who's to say it's always been rare or is rare as a result of the inherent nature of languages? Though part of why people study Klingon is because it does rare language things. It makes accessible and affordable the exotic and challenging, even in the face of people who, probably mostly not realizing it, want such things only in the hands of the rich. But at the same time, I also want something that contrasts with Okrand Atlantean, Okrand Klingon, The Vulcan Languages, and "Okrand Mutsun", just in case anyone - most likely myself - ever studies them together again. And I don't conlang all the time, so I also have thoughts of creating a masterpiece to show off my years of study. Too bad that it would take a perfect duplicate of my own studies to entirely appreciate what I've done - well, actually far more than that, for comparative perspective. Ars longa, vita brevis. To me, though, it's more about science than art. Not being much of artists, or considering themselves distinct from the same, most scholars might be not able to relate.

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I had to edit this reply a few times, quickly, so it might end up more repetitive than usual.
Bob
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Re: Star Trek Ferengi Languages by 1995 Timothy Miller, David Salo, and 1995-2017 TV Show Writers and Kim Douglas

Post by Bob »

I took a few days vacation from this language but am back at it. I'm translating The Rules of Acquisition into the language. I just recently invented many interesting words for the language using a 1500s text about merchants in Chinese Civilization and Society: A Sourcebook by Patricia Buckley Ebrey. So now the language has a much larger vocabulary. Too bad I lack the time to make much use of these words in my computer-based translations.

I probably will use that text to translate into Ferengi. Though I forget if the original is grammatically interesting enough to help me along. I think it is. I can add in there anything I want, I know.

For which, I did sizeable studies into the phonology of existing invented words for Ferengi Languages.

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What else is notable about this work on a Ferengi Language by me, based on previous ones?

In contrast to Klingon and Vulcan, I'm moving toward an ambiguous orthography and underlying phonemic inventory. This is in imitation of the many-variant-having orthography of 1600s Powhatan Language, based on 1600s Early Modern English and Latin orthography, though mostly English for mechanics. But I'm not going to work out exactly what the variants even are, just use spellings from existing Ferengi conlangs and pseudo-conlangs and make some up as I go along. But the underlying concept is actually the phonemic inventory given in the 1995 Timothy Miller and David Salo Ferengi Language. But disguised using the spellings from the 1995 / 2002 / 2017 Ferengi Languages of tv show writers and fans.

Which is actually its own sort of realism in contrast to most conlangs here or on Zompist Bboard. Real languages and language families are a mess of related and unrelated writing systems from across the centuries. What I like about Frenengi ones are that they're very Anglophone and Francophone. Which is a specialty of mine, especially 1500s to 1800s Anglophone orthographies. Especially Chinese ones! 1600s Massachusett is very much like this, even to a fault, and to a charm.

I'm not sure, either, how much time I will end up putting into imitating the 2002 Ferengi Conlang from the Star Trek "Acquisition". If its complexities were intentional, and it really seems that they are, it would be time-consuming to duplicate.

And I also managed to study a c 1988 book of "Wall Street Words". But I won't translate any of these into Ferengi, I lack time. They're also not as linguistically or anthropologically interesting as words based on historical texts. Plus, I lack time.

I also struggle with how dull the existing Ferengi languages are and ideas I have on how to make my own Ferengi Language more interesting.

I'm very excited with this project but got to wrap it up by this Thursday or next Thursday. I hope when I get it posted to this group, you all like it.

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Otherwise, for studying real world languages for inspiration, I recently did more study of 1300s Early Modern Italian in Dante's Inferno, some study of Turkish and Turkic languages, c 1912 interlinear glossed folk tales in Lhota Naga from Sino-Tibetan, and readings in word-building in Sino-Tibetan languages. And a ton of Middle German from one bear hunting episode in The Nibelungenleid. A week ago, I did a lot of work on a huge Pali dictionary (Indo-European, related to Sanskrit). Then, many other things. I'm looking at c 1950s to present American paperbacks teaching showy vocabulary for career and social advancement. And I've been doing some light readings into terminology and humor related to Western Upper Class pasttimes. But a lot of my background reading is just to give me a break from the grind of making up a language and translating a text into it. Plus, I got to look up some Star Trek lore on the Memory Alpha and Beta wikis and try to remember what I do of episodes I ever watched.

Did I say anywhere that I spent some time comparing my translations to those in the 1950s book "Maxims and Proverbs of Old Korea". I can't read the Korean alphabet much, though I know its grammar quite well, but went by the English translations. I think I've been doing a pretty good job, all things considered. But I was worried before I studied that book a bit. I really recommend that book.

http://www.librarything.com/work/2441060

The Rules of Acquisition are not proverbs but are comparable to proverbs.

Image:
I like to think of Ferengi as bats with reference to Modoc and or maybe other Native American myths.

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Bob
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Re: Star Trek Ferengi Languages by 1995 Timothy Miller, David Salo, and 1995-2017 TV Show Writers and Kim Douglas

Post by Bob »

I'm still working on Star Trek Ferengi Language. I hope to finish it this week and then I should photograph it and recent Klingon, Mutsun, Vulcan work and get them on here.

I finished doing the "idiomatic skeleton translation" for the Rules of Acquisition.

Next, I'll do the same for a sizeable prose text about merchants all over c 1500s China. It has some embarassing parts in there but I thought it was okay.

I'm really struggling with whether to use the grammars of the preexisting Ferengi Languages or make substantial changes to make them more interesting.

Maybe I'll make it polysynthetic. Maybe I'll put the noun affixes on the verbs and visa versa. Maybe I'll add a "magic morpheme" that covers a variety of things without entirely specifying what it does in each instance (something like what polysynthetic languages do for agreement). Maybe nouns and verbs will split into two parts which float randomly around the sentences. Or nouns and verbs become consonants and vowels which merge with eachother while all the affixes go on the postpositions or inpositions or something.

But really I should probably just follow through with the grammars the way that they are. Because they're amateurish and not much of a contrast with Klingon but it's a big deal that the tv show writers made one and a fan and student of Klingon and probably university linguistics made another.

I feel like if it's not enough of a contrast with Klingon, Vulcan, and "Mutsun" (actually here Yokuts), I'm setting myself and maybe others up for a tiresome task in the future.

But it's very difficult because I want to make a well-thought-out masterpiece here, even in a short amount of time.

For just one example: The Vulcan Language Institute Vulcan that I recently translated into and expanded the grammar of, it had almost entirely "implied plurals" like in Chinese. Well, Klingon always marks plurals and so does this 1995 Ferengi Language but the 2002 "Acquisition" episode Ferengi Language, it has almost entirely "implied plurals". Maybe it got the idea from Vulcan, maybe just because they read it and wanted to use it. That's fine but I'm also thinking of Yokuts and would like it if they were all more grammatically distinct than that. That's all. We'll see what I finally decided on. I think I'm leaning for some changes. And both the 1995 Timothy Miller Ferengi Language and the 2002 Acquisition Ferengi Language are seemingly too grammatically complex to entirely duplicate. So we'll see. You'd think it would be easy, considering how neat these other Ferengi Languages are.

What I finally put online will include grammars for all the above-named languages, plus the translated texts, though these are all typed out and not hand-written. And my hand writing is very neat. I think I prefer to just write out the grammatical terms, though, for the interlinear gloss translations.

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But for the telegraphic (short) Rules of Acquisition, proverb-like, translations, I notably took pains to have the English words roughly correspond with Ferengi word parts which are more of an approximation for how actual etymologies work. But it was an interesting experience because so much of The Rules of Acquisition is English idiom that could not be Ferengi idiom. And I pushed it on a few occasions but could not otherwise do it and so did something else, following the principle of "four character groups" and poetic devices like what we see in Classic Japanese Haiku (which I have studied quite a bit of). And despite my recent translations for Vulcan being into an analytic language take on the Vulcan Language Institute Vulcan Languages, somehow I didn't think it was a bad idea, at least for the "idiomatic skeleton draft translation".
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