Re: Star Trek

>As for languages, the only well attested Treklang is Klingon, which Marc
>Okrand seems to have devised by combining unusual features from a number of
>different natlangs.
One of my first public concessions to conlang curiosity was when I wrote a
research paper on the topic for a sociology class.  During which, I managed
to find a way to contact Marc Okrand, who was very patient in Mr. Trekkie Me
calling him up at random to ask questions.

It may be public knowledge, at least on this list, Dr. Okrand got his PhD in
Linguistics from Berkeley, with an emphasis on comparative linguistics
between East Asian and Native American languages.  He has a working
knowledge of several (dozen) of them.  He related that when he was coming up
with Klingon, he would come up with a particular rule that reminded him of
an identical rule in (say) Burmese.  To avoid any comparison with any one
human language, he would deliberately design his next rule to be completely
the opposite of Burmese.



>While it's designed to sound alien, there's nothing about it that couldn't
>be human.
>

Is there really a human language somewhere on the planet that's OVS?  Where?
  How widely spoken?

:Chris

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