Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 July 27

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July 27

French audio translation

Hi, could someone please translate a small piece of audio in French found here? It's from an interview with Jean Cocteau (about "Phenixologie"). It's just 30 seconds long. Thanks in advance. --Kreachure (talk) 01:40, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Jean Cocteau, la scène à laquelle vos amis espagnols viennent d'assister est celle de votre résurrection.	Jean Cocteau, the scene that your Spanish friends just witnessed is that of your resurrection.
C'est à dire que les poètes meurent et revivent. Dalí a inventé une science très belle: la phénixologie. La phénixologie, cela veut dire que les personnes meurent souvent pour renaître. C'est la renaissance du phénix. Brûle, brûle pour se changer en cendres, et à leur tour les cendres se changent en soi-même. On devient soi-même à travers ce phénomène de la phénixologie.	That is to say that poets die and live again. Dalí invented a very beautiful science: phoenixology. Phoenixology, that means that people die always often to be reborn. It's the rebirth of the phoenix. Burn, burn to change into ashes, and in their turn the ashes become oneself. One becomes oneself through this phenomenon of phoenixology.

—Tamfang (talk) 06:28, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Afew small improvements to the translation (IMHO): ...that people die often in order to be reborn... ...to turn into ashes, and in turn the ashes... --Xuxl (talk) 09:36, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

dunno how I mistook souvent for toujours! —Tamfang (talk) 16:40, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Thank you very much! :) --Kreachure (talk) 12:24, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

German infinitive noun declension

Hi, I stumbled across an occurence of "das Kitzeln", and it has prompted me to try to figure out how to decline the German infinitive nouns (gerunds?), and I am having trouble finding the rule.

My best guess is that it is as follows with the verb kitzeln (to tickle), and that all gerunds (das Üben, das Fliegen, das Geben, etc) would follow this pattern.

Singular:

• Nominative: das Kitzeln
• Genitive: des Kitzelns
• Dative: dem Kitzeln
• Accusative: das Kitzeln

Plural:

• Nominative: die Kitzeln
• Genitive: der Kitzeln
• Dative: den Kitzeln (or den Kitzelnen?)
• Accusative: die Kitzeln

Is this correct? And does anybody know of a source; I wouldn't mind updating the German_verbs#Gerund section with this information.

Thanks,

Falconus^{p t c} 03:21, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Does the plural of the infinitive exist? μηδείς (talk) 04:05, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

The singular is right. I don't think these gerunds are ever used in the plural, but if so, then the dative plural is den Kitzeln because you don't add -en to a plural that already ends in -n. Angr (talk) 05:02, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Our German verbs article says that "the gerund does not have a plural, and its gender is neuter". I'm by no means fluent in German, but from what I can see, the German Wikipedia articles for "gerund", "infinitive", and "German grammar" (of which "verbs" is a subsection) do not even make mention of the fact that such usages exist, their declensions, etc.  dalahäst ^{(let's talk!)} 05:06, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

The plural of the infinitive seems like a contradiction in terms. Spanish does allow one to speak of seres humanos and la separación de poderes, although these seem like idiomatic expressions, rather than a productive rule allowing pluralization of any infinitive. English may be a bad example, but "are to errs human, while to forgives are divine"? We speak of does (do's) and don'ts, where do's sounds like a pluralized infinitive. Again, this seems more like an idiom than a generally accepted rule. μηδείς (talk) 06:33, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

The German article is de:Verbalnomen ("verbal noun"). Both of my grammar books (Eisenberg: "Grundriss der deutschen Grammatik"; Engel: "Deutsche Grammatik") call it nominalisierter Infinitiv. Neither book even has the term "gerund" (Gerundium) in the index, that term is not used in German grammar. Verbal nouns only have singular forms, and their declination is correct as stated by Falconus. --Wrongfilter (talk) 09:57, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Excellent, thanks. Because we could talk about "the ticklings" in English, it hadn't occured to me that you can't do that in German. Thanks for your responses! Falconus^{p t c} 17:34, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

I suppose if you did want to talk about "the ticklings" in German, it would be die Kitzlungen. Angr (talk) 17:42, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

But "ticklings" are not "to tickles"; gerunds, not infinitives. German has no problem with the pluralization of forms in -ung such as Ermordungen or Bedeutungen (which are feminine, BTW). μηδείς (talk) 17:54, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

But what about "der Kitzler"? :D 109.99.71.97 (talk) 18:46, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Forget Kitzler. How do you like Kipling? μηδείς (talk) 18:56, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

If only. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 21:33, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Have an Arabic speaker translate this Qadafi capture video

Thread retitled from "Have an Arabic speaker translate this Qadafi capture video".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy1dsO-jKd0&feature=player_embedded&bpctr=1343175474&skipcontrinter=1

See, all I understand from the video is "Moammar!" and "Allahu Akbar," (God is Great.)

This was an exciting day for Libyans and pro-democracy individuals worldwide. The moment marked the fall of a die-hard dictator after a rule that spanned longer than I've been alive.

This is why that moment is worth translating.

Now, could anyone translate everything else that was said in the video? I know it's quite a lot of shouts, but please translate whatever is intelligible. Thanks. --70.179.170.114 (talk) 12:46, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

In harmony with WP:TPOC (point 13: Section headings), I am changing the heading of this section from Have an Arabic speaker translate this Qadafi capture video to Have an Arabic speaker translate this Qadafi capture video—in order to enable links to the archived section. In the future, someone may wish to link to this discussion in the archives, and square brackets in headings hinder the functioning of section links. See Wikipedia talk:Reference desk/Archive 63#Dysfunctional links in archived section headings (September 2009).

—Wavelength (talk) 15:02, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Ireland town

Unknown Ireland town

What is the name of this town in Ireland that I took off the 1860 US Census?--Doug Coldwell ^talk 15:40, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Does it have to be a town? It might say Co. Cavan. Pais (talk) 16:31, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

I do believe you got it! Thanks...--Doug Coldwell ^talk 17:18, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Funny, I'd've guessed it says Barbara Stanwyck. μηδείς (talk) 22:07, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

No, County Cavan is in the hills, whereas Barbara Stanwyck is in a big valley. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:51, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Ugh. With punchlines like that, I hope they keep you out of the talkies. ;) Snow (talk) 05:11, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Barbara, sure, but Stanwyck, Medeis? Where do you see that? Now, Barbara Ireland would have been a much more reasonable stab. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 10:07, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Barbara Srelwick, actually, with really bad handwriting, lol. Stanwyck was a pseudonym, so maybe she got confused.μηδείς (talk) 22:26, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Most useful foreign language

Which foreign language is the most useful? --146.7.96.200 (talk) 19:42, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

To whom? For what purpose? If you're planning a visit to Iceland, then the best language to study would be Icelandic. You can see how this answer is going to depend on a number of factors none of which you've given us. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 19:56, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

The user geolocates to Missouri. Assuming he doesn't wish to leave the US, and does not have specific plans, Spanish would be the best bet since he is statistically much more likely to come across Spanish speakers than others in the US. Learning any foreign language broadens the mind. But if you don't have occasion to use it it is like a blind man studying painting. Spanish is also broadcast widely in the US and it has a long tradition of art and literature to enjoy. Chinese has its obvious and similar advantages as well. Already speaking Spanish, were I able to take up any new language now for free I would add Mandarin Chinese. μηδείς (talk) 21:35, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

As has been noted already, your inquiry is a little too open-ended and lacking in context for any significantly practical response specific to your needs, but I'll try to make some general observations about various prominent languages that you might find useful. To begin with, there are the "world languages", those which are not only spoken by a large number of people globally but which are also spoken in a good number of locations outside their region of origin; other than English, these most notably include the three most broadly spoken romance languages (Spanish, French, and Portuguese) and German. Like English, these are all languages that gained significant influence through the force of European colonization in the last few centuries and they remain amongst the most dominant languages in general and very widely used in commerce in particular. Then there are a number of prominent languages which have a large number of speakers but do not have quite the global spread that the above languages do (though they may still cover a significant region and/or be found on multiple continents). These include Mandarin, Cantonese, Wu Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Dutch, Italian, Arabic, Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Punjabi, Tamil, Pashto, Persian, Javanese, Malay, and a number of others, depending on your criteria. The degree to which these are spoken predominantly as first or second languages varies considerably from language to language, but they can all be reasonably described as global languages to some degree. Of course, without knowing your particular needs or the reason for your drive to learn a new language (assuming this is why you ask the question) it's hard to refine the answer further. But one thing you might keep in mind when choosing is just how much of a challenge you would like in the process. Presuming you are a native English speaker, you may find Germanic languages the easiest to pick up (Scandinavian tongues in particular tend to be easier for English speakers to assimilate to, relatively speaking) whereas Chinese languages with their tonal phonology or Japanese with it's markedly different syntax would probably be more on the difficult end of the spectrum. If you also don't fancy having to learn an entire new orthography you're better off sticking with a language which uses the same alphabet as English; luckily there's no shortage of these. There's also, as has been noted above, the consideration of immersement opportunity; learning a language is considerably easier when you have a context to speak it as frequently as possible, especially with native speakers. Hope that helps some. If you wish to narrow your search a bit more, drop a line with additional details as to your need here (or on my talk page, if you wish). I will say also, all things being equal, you could just go with a language that tends, in your culture, to make the opposite sex melt; for most English speakers the obvious choice here is French. Snow (talk) 23:28, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

I find English to be a quite useful foreign language. And I quite like its quirkiness. Most talk radio is a downer, though. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:39, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Holy crap, that's supposed to be English? I just assumed they were speaking in tongues... Snow (talk) 23:44, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

"Speaking in tongues" is in the Bible, and thus certainly English! --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:53, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

I'll generally endorse Jack's Snow's comments except to mention that of the European languages he mentioned, Italian, Dutch and the Scandinavian dialects won't get you very far except in their native lands, and many Dutch and Scandinavians speak English. While Japanese has a different word order from English, and its writing systems are relatively complex, its grammar and phonology are quite simple and regular. As for French, maybe it's different in Australia or in cartoons, but nowadays most Americans find it suited as the object of humor, rather than a medium of romance. (But like Latin, it is great for expanding your knowledge of the origins/meanings and even spelling of English expressions and vocabulary.) Hindi/Urdu and Arabic have relatively wide usage. But Bengali, Punjabi, Tamil, Pashto, Persian, and Javanese, while they may have a large number of speakers locally, are otherwise very limited niche languages outside their native areas. μηδείς (talk) 00:32, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Maybe I'm on your mind, Medeis (which would be understandable enough). :) The only language I mentioned was Icelandic. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 09:56, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Very odd. Have missed that for days. Well, Icelandic looks really cool on paper and has some neat grammatical characteristics, but like the other Norse dialects it sounds a little goofy in its intonation (in a very cute way, of course). μηδείς (talk) 01:37, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Well, I'll say this - as someone with a background in comparative linguistics who has studied Japanese (albeit casually) for a good long while, I still find it to be one of the more challenging languages to be a productive and eloquent speaker in, coming from the perspective of a native English speaker. You're quite correct that the learning process is aided somewhat by a shallow phonology and orthography (with regard to the syllabaries, anyway, not kanji of course), but I don't find the syntax to be any more regular than your average language and regardless, both syntax and morphology are just so different from English, especially for someone who has no formal training with language and no experience with speaking a second language. Plus it's absolutely loaded with idioms and other semantic nuances that will take you a lifetime to master if not acquired from early in life -- Japanese grammars are about as thick as a microbiology text, and one-tenth as easily assimilated! Mind you, I'm by no means a polyglot and mileage will certainly vary, but would I present Japanese as the language likely to be the smoothest for a new learner to transition to from English? Not on your life! On a second note (and not to seem like I'm picking an argument!), I think you're underselling French by a mile if you think it's more a source for comedic than enamouring potential; I can only speak to personal experience from one side of the gender divide, but I assure you it still does at least as well as any other language in existence for scoring superficial points with women in the States. But again, mileage will vary, I suppose. Of course, the language itself (any language) pales in comparison to the influence of the accent; in terms of linguistic allure, a Frenchman speaking in English is going to beat you, speaking in (even flawless) French, most any day of the week! ;) Snow (talk) 04:13, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Well, idioms is idioms in any language. I don't imagine anyone not immersed for two decades could speak any language as well as most of us here speak English. But Japanese has no synthesis, it has regular postpositions instead of irregular cases, no irregular verbs to speak of. Its phonology is a tad easier than Spanish. Just no basic IE vocabulary cognates and those damn Chinese squiggles. I have had not a single lesson in Japanese, but was able to help a stranded Japanese businessman at Penn Station in NY get on the right train to NJ by asking him (from just having read Mario Pei and Anthony Burgess), "Anato wa Purinceton e desu ka?" (You Princeton to is, eh?) and answering to him when he said "Hai!" that, "Atashi wa Purinceton e desu." (I to Princeton am.) He then started a conversation in Japanese--to which I could only answer, "Aisumasen (sorry), no Japanese." I could never have bullshat my way through Russian verbs or Chinese tones like that. Oh, and Spanish and Russian in the right tone have moved me further than French with its silly rounded front vowels and nasal vowels ever could. Merely watching an Almodovar film can give me an orgasm. μηδείς (talk) 05:13, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Well, different strokes (or strengths as I guess the case is here), I guess. Japanese actually is a synthetic language (agglutinative, specifically), but I do take your meaning at the same time. Everybody is going to have a different experience based not only on their natural inclinations and previous language experience but also the context in which they will need to speak the target language. All of that being conceded though, I still stand by my original statement that Japanese, on average, is not going to be one of the easier languages for a native monolingual English speaker to pick up first, at least not when compared to, say, Norwegian or German or really any Indo-European language. If I were to recommend a language that has the shallow phonology and largely consistent syntax/morphology that you cite as bonuses for Japanese, I would recommend Italian; it not only has these traits but also uses the exact same alphabet (minus a few letters from English) and is not such a monumental leap in term of syntax in general. In fact, pronunciation is as predictable from spelling as you'll ever find in any language and compared to its romance language brethren, it's conjugations are highly regular. But is it just me or is this thread becoming just another pointless (other than ego stroking) effort caused by yet another I.P. posting an open-ended question and then seemingly never checking back? Honestly, how do they even find their way here? It's not like the RefDesks are the most highly public side of Wikipedia. Oh well, interesting discussion all the same, I suppose. Snow (talk) 00:37, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

We had this same discussion a month or two back if anyone wants to check the archives I am sure it's been had ten times. As for the hit and run IP's, that's par for the course. μηδείς (talk) 01:32, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Wait, had which discussion? Japanese typology? Bilingual transition? And yeah, the IP's may be nothing new, but sometimes they make me wonder if we're part of a social experiment to see how long you can get people who are devoted to a given subject matter to chase their own tails in discussion without any more impetus than the opening question! ;) Snow (talk) 02:04, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Which is precisely why I answered the OP with a straight bat. The ball was then in their court (to mix my sporting metaphors) to come back to us with more information. Nobody here was forced to engage in any inconsequential rambling. I don't mean that in a rude way, but without the answers to the questions I posed, the very best anyone here could hope to do would be to "chase their own tail". Congratulations on achieving that. Sometimes, as the song goes, "we say it best when we say nothing at all". -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 07:50, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Meh, personally I was happy to answer the question as it was posed with broad strokes; some of it may not be particularly germane to his circumstances as a result, but you can still answer that question, vague a it is, with some salient points. I just wish the OP had come back to engage after the fact, is all. Snow (talk) 19:45, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

You could have waited. I put the ball in their court. If they haven't bothered to return serve, maybe they don't really care. Maybe they're just trolling. How would we know what they're on about if they don't come back to clarify their question? It doesn't seem like this is a life-or-death matter for them. One doesn't voluntarily engage in the provision of answers to unclear questions and then take issue about the lack of information. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 20:18, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Personally I don't always have the luxury of knowing exactly when I'll have time to get back to these queries and I'd rather take the chance on responding to somebody who will not use the information than not responding to somebody who might find it useful. As elsewhere on Wikipedia, I try to remember not all IP's are made of the same cloth and assume good faith in their inquiries. Do I waste my time a little bit as a result? Undoubtedly. Am I particularly bothered by it? Not really. If these types of IPs are attempting to troll, they are the least effective trolls in existence, since asking people to talk about subjects they consider themselves knowledgeable on is the worst possible way to try to get under someone's skin. All of that being said, they do sometimes cause some bloat here, but it all gets archived in a few days anyway and the answers we give, whether the IP makes use of them or not, may serve to elucidate a future user who may then not have pose their own query. These discussions also sometimes highlight deficiencies in our articles when we go to look for in-wiki references to share, which I think is a significant, if less appreciated, benefit of the RefDesks that is quite separate from the use the OP gets out of it. And, as Wikipedians at least, we'd all be wasting our time here if these efforts weren't improving the project; after-all, we have what seems to be an average of 5-10 people answering a given question for one person. That would be a rather inefficient ratio if we aren't assuming the benefit to many more people that can result from improved content in article space. But your position is an understandable one as well, and I don't begrudge you your refusal to engage the subject until your sure the request is one that is genuinely needed and the info will be put to good use. I'm just clarifying that my earlier whinging was (mostly) good-natured and I don't really feel the process is derailed by the "drive-by" questions. Snow (talk) 21:50, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for that full and gracious response, Snow. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 00:22, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Huh, did you know that we don't have an article (or even a disambig reference) for grammars, in the sense of a reference guide to the grammar of a given language? I'll have to remedy that this weekend. Snow (talk) 04:31, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

See Category:Grammars of specific languages.—Wavelength (talk) 20:00, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

No, I think you may have misinterpreted the subject I'm talking about. I know we have articles which detail the grammar of specific languages. But a grammar for (as opposed to the grammar of) a language is a term used to describe a text which takes the format of a (passingly) comprehensive collection of the basic grammatical rules of that language. So, for example, "I just bought a grammar for Italian." We have no article which defines this type of text. Snow (talk) 21:36, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the Bible tells us all about the adventures of those well-known Englishmen, God and his son Jesus. (Well, GBS recorded he was taught that God was not just an Englishman, but a Protestant.) -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 00:30, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

That may have been the case before the Revolution, but nowadays the Father and Son are like the Bushes. God's a New Englander and his son is from Texas. μηδείς (talk) 00:36, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

And presiding over football games, to the detriment of their other duties.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 03:37, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Like smiting transgressors? Sometimes it's good to have congressional gridlock and a distracted head of state. μηδείς (talk) 07:17, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

All this talk of Speaking in Tongues and Bushes is reminding me of how good Remain in Light was. (The first time I heard Fela Kuti, I thought, that's odd, this sounds like Talking Heads. And this track still creeps me out.) In my experience, if you're an English speaker abroad, it pays to have a midwestern accent - people find you much easier to understand that way.--Shirt58 (talk) 01:57, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Above: you could just go with a language that tends, in your culture, to make the opposite sex melt; for most English speakers the obvious choice here is French. I have often wondered whether this was a key to the amorous successes of multiply-married Newton Leroy Gingrich. As a resident of Brussels and author of a dissertation on the Belgian Congo, surely he would be a francophone. Although French may not be the first choice; see A Fish Called Wanda. -- Hoary (talk) 10:18, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

This might be the perfect topic to establish the fact that learning Latin or Greek is absolutely the most ridiculous way to waste your time. Anyway, I'd think the best "foreign language" is still English, even it's not a foreign language to you. It might help to learn "international English". For me its much easier to understand people who had to learn English themselves. Native speakers are much harder to understand. Being able to speak like someone learning English would make you being understood by many more people than any course in Chinese, Spanish or whatever language could do. Joepnl (talk) 01:21, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but I don't think that's quite what the OP had in mind. I agree with μηδείς on Spanish. Being in the Americas, you're far more likely to know a few people who are native Spanish speakers. -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 03:37, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

(Ahem!) @ Joepnl: Your so-called "fact" is not even remotely "established". Even as an ironic comment, it deserves instant nuking. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 10:02, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

As a citizen of the US who is learning / has learned a number of languages widely considered "useless" here, I can attest to the fact that even the languages which seem useless and do not have huge numbers of speakers like Mandarin can actually be very useful, beyond the mental benefits that learning most any language provide, etc. For example, speaking Norwegian has allowed me to follow Anders Behring Breivik's trial and the events surrounding it in far greater detail than most English-language media provides. On a more personal note, I really like the style of NRK's news coverage, so I read most news on their website instead of, say, CNN.  dalahäst ^{(let's talk!)} 06:33, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

I agree entirely that no language, even the incredibly elegant Latin and Ancient Greek, is a waste of time to learn. But how horrible to use Norwegian to follow anything to do with Breivik. It's like studying Georgian only to look forward to using it with Hell's General Secretary.

I find it fascinating, in a way—though, fascinating or not, unpleasant events are not undone if we simply pretend they did not happen. Certainly, though, Norwegian and Georgian alike are useful for much more than studying such things.  dalahäst ^{(let's talk!)} 07:53, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

I'll put in a token plug for Esperanto (which was my second language, at age 5–6) because it's very easy to learn. True you won't get as many opportunities to use it as some of the others mentioned, but every language you have makes the next language a little bit easier, so it makes sense to start with an easy one. —Tamfang (talk) 06:35, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Esperanto is has the plusses of all the pseudo-Romance languages; it is easy to comprehend when it is used in a straightforward way. The weird part is when you get into all the productive little morphological elements and start coining words that have no basis or parallel in the Indo-European languages. At that point a natural-ist wants to retreat into latino sine flexione or go whole hog into Volapük. And what's the point of LSF when you have Spanish? Or Volapük when there's Lojban, or Sindarin, or the Navajo language, with its lack of regular verbs? μηδείς (talk) 06:46, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

You want a language with no regular verbs? Try Old Irish, a language whose verbal morphology makes even hard-core language nerds tremble. Angr (talk) 07:57, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Coining words is the fun part of Esperanto: every new bit of vocabulary can be immediately leveraged. —Tamfang (talk) 11:01, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

@ Snow above, I think the prior discussion was on what would make the best universal language. The obvious answer is... μηδείς (talk) 03:45, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Hah! Did you know Klingon was actually composed by a historical linguist? Whose doctoral adviser was non other than Mary Haas! I had always thought that was about the most trivial use for the degree imaginable and, having never looked at Klingon (I still haven't to be fair), I always imagined that it, like most constructed languages, it must be oversimplified and full of inconsistencies. But, much to my surprise, I've not only heard his earlier academic work complimented by other comparative linguists, but also Klingon itself; apparently he put a lot of effort into making everything just slightly off while still making it self-consistent and generally still adherent to the principles of natural language. An awful lot of work when you consider that they probably could have gotten away with putting any old gibberish in there! Here's my favourite piece of Klingon. Snow (talk) 05:57, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

I have a lot of respect for Haas, and did not realize Okrand was a student, but it makes sense. I'd pay quite a bit to see a full version of that soliloquy; the actor does an incredible job. I think taH pagh taHbe actually outdoes the English translation. Imagine Fiona Shaw as a TlhIngan Gertrude! I am a huge fan of Shakespeare, so that's saying a lot on my part. μηδείς (talk) 07:13, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Shakespeare is better in the original Klingon, of course. If only all advanced degrees resulted in fame and fortune like that! Adam Bishop (talk) 18:47, 30 July 2012 (UTC)