Re: Voyager "Displaced" Vulcan ritual McReynolds Fri, 19 Dec 1997 11:43:15 -0600 -----Original Message----- From: Saul Epstein To: vulcan-linguistics*shikahr,com,inter,net Date: Friday, December 19, 1997 10:06 AM Subject: Re: Voyager "Displaced" Vulcan ritual >Saul: >Right. The "ritual" explanation is a variety of the broader "diversity" >explanation. Even though Vulcan and its settlements have probably had a >common dialect for a thousand years or more, I'm convinced that other >dialects and even other language families, with their own languages and >dialects, still thrive. "Tal'oth," may be what Tuvok's people call our "Kaas >Waan" and his speech may be full of dental fricatives. But those very >differences make his data less important to our work. We should include them >in any summary of Vulcan linguistics as a whole, but not go to too much >trouble to make room for them in the dialect the ZC describes. That is exactly the sort of thing I was talking about. Let's just say that in the future Vulcan Dictionary, there might be entries laid out like... kaas waan [Kas-wan] (n) : a ritual blah, blah, blah ..,and so forth. The entry for tal'oth could read... tal'oth [regional dialect] (n) : see kaas waan. So, we can include the words, but mark them as being from a different dialect. I would think that would apply to nearly all of the Vulcan seen on screen with the exception of anything coming from Spock or being spoken to Spock outside of rituals. Why? Spock's father is the Vulcan Ambassador, and as such would almost certainly speak the "official" version of their language; hence, so would Spock. I would include the smattering of TOS words as part of our official version, along with whatever can be salvaged from the Spock-Saavik conversation from Star Trek II. Star Trek I and III can be discarded as being ceremonial ritual-speak, and Voyager can be discarded as being Tuvok's regional dialect. This is also supported by the fact that Tuvok seems to be of a different race of Vulcan, which would presumable have a different language and culture to go along with physical appearances, just like here on Earth. Does this seem equitable to all concerned? It seems to allow us LOTS of room to play around with, but allows us to explain away any inconsistencies we see on screen. Like you said, Saul, there could be a number of side projects that would deal with Old Vulcan or the Tuvok Dialect and the like. -McReynolds