Re: Star Trek

Mark a screfas:

"But Duane's Rihannsu novels predate TNG.  SInce then, we've seen a very
different Romulan language and culture - just as the Klingons we got
starting in Star Trek III bore no resemblance to those of John M. Ford's
Final Reflection.  The version of Remus in Insurrection, for instance, is
completely irreconcilable with the Rihannsu version.  So I don't think you
can draw any inferences from the books about the nature of the Romulan
language.

That said, I love the concept.  Going back to the protolanguage and
artificially evolving it in ways that are deliberately what they consider to
be exactly the opposite of how the real modern language developed?  That is
a totally awesome way to develop a conlang. :) "



Mark,

Maybe we can view the books as a kind of alternate history. They are not
tied into the whole ST Universe the way the Star Wars novels are. I still
love the whole Rihannsu concept and it has been taken up by a few other ST
writers as well, and since it's much easier to cast of "Nemesis" (cause it
was a really grotty flick) I'll continue to see the Rihannsu story as legit
- at least in my books.



There are whole paragraphs in Duane's "The Romulan Way" (with glossary) and
"My Enemy, My Ally" in her conlanged Rihannsu language. And there used to be
a web site with some grammar as well. I don't know if it's still running.

Dan





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On 5/18/06, daniel prohaska <danielprohaska@...> wrote:

> > What else?
> Romulans and Vulcans, at least.
"Which *does* make sense because Romulans are Vulcan emigrants. They are the
same species."


I don't know how familiar any of you are with the expanded ST-Universe,
meaning the novels. Diane Duane wrote "The Romulan Way" among others in
which she describes the emigration of the Vulcans that were to become the
Romulans, or "Rihannsu" in their language.

According to Duane, Romulans speak what is essentially a conlang. They
constructed a language based upon Old High Vulcan and "aged" the language in
a different direction from Surak's contemporary colloquial language. It is
quite conceivable that the language will have developed further after
emigration. The development of Vulcan would no doubt have been faster
because of native development dynamics and the longer time of development.
The Romulan ships were generation ships without warp capability, so they
were travelling at relativistic speeds and while the voyage itself took
about 150 years ca. 800 years had passed on Vulcan.
Dan




--
Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>