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Klingon Interpreter Needed In Oregon
myrashka writes "CNN has a report of a position available for an Klingon-English interpreter by a mental health office in Oregon (how apropos). Could this be the start of the next hot job market (perhaps they'll need Nebari-English interpreters next)?"
It's nice to know that people spend a whole lot of good time religeously studying something like Klingon, instead of some useless subject, like Portugese or Japanese. I think I will spend the next few years of my life learning how to speak fluent Modem.
Nah, all they'd have to do is go to the Klingon Language Institute.
In all seriousness, I think this extremely interesting. From my reading of the article, it sounds like the Multonomah County Department of Human Services, by law, has to provide these services, and that means that they have to provide translation services for people who ostensibly only speak Klingon. It's like a totally bizarre collision of law and pop culture. I love it.
Hell, there's probably a research paper in it for someone, focusing on how a phenomenon like Star Trek can have such far-reaching and totally unanticipated effects.
From the onion..
"I know this is my home, but there isn't anything here for me," said unemployed Navajo nation member Leonard Murphy, 22, who dropped out of school at 14 and remembers little of the Navajo he learned in elementary school. "Everyone's leaving, getting off the reservation. Now there's nothing to do here except drink beer and watch Star Trek."
Although it is fairly inaccurate that there are only 1000 speakers (and yes I know it's satire thank you) it's really sad to say that truely affluent speakers of that toungue are becoming quite scarce, my generation is almost 100% non navajo speaking, sure they know a little to some, but they are not affluent speakers of the language..
How do I know this? Well to start with I was raised in Farmington New Mexico which is just outside of Shiprock (basically the Navajo Nation's capital city) and I've had many Navajo freinds through school, only a handful of which spoke any navajo at all, and maybe one or two of which were fluent. Not that I would be able to tell, Navajo is a very unusual language, very gutteral and primitave, although enchanting in it's own right.
I can certainly believe that Klingon was modeled after Navajo, they sound amazingly similar.. And as far as more speakers of Klingon? It's actually possible that there are more casual speakers although I doubt that there are more fluent speakers.. However I could scarcely imagine it being as hard to learn, as most people describe learning it as somewhat,, well.. Painful.
As an aside, the Navajo people are probably one of the most wonderful cultures in the world (especially their family values & strength of their family ties) and I would encourage everyone to learn all you can about these wonderful people.
Yeah, well, you don't need to camp out for weeks to get tickets to a Star Trek movie. In fact, the producers might camp out for weeks in front of your house to get you to go see it.
Just because you sold your soul to the devil that needn't make you a teetotaler. --The Devil and Daniel Webster
Stupid things (or things that seem stupid to others - as an anonymous kid said: "Kids don't do stupid things. They have their reasons.") have been done everywhere and everywhen, but the number of people who suffer from mental problems is big only when there's something wrong with the society. Yes, the hiring of Klingon interpreters is a sign, but it's not "We're doomed, they hired Klingon speakers", but "We're doomed, they need Klingon speakers".
Hell is not other people; it is yourself. - Ludwig Wittgenstein
I live in georgia, and although I don't live atlanta metro right now, I did for 15 years. Who told you that there aren't widely diverse cultures and languages spoken? I can take you to generic waffle houses just a few miles apart where in one all you will hear is mostly african dialects(like somali,ethiopian,etc), drive a few miles, various asian, another few miles pure normal bubba, another few miles spanish, then another few miles pure ebonics that can be as incomphrehensible as to classify as a foreign language. There's an area outside atlanta so completely asian it's called "chambodia" a mix of "chamblee" the suburb and cambodia. There's a huge mix, people from all over the planet live here, you will definetly hear different languages spoken when you go out to the store, etc.
Sounds more like typical regional bias "elitness" to me. Everyone's pet area is "the best" or "well, WE have such and such and THEY don't and....." and everyone else's area is "weird and has such and such a stereotype attributed to it". That's just bogus man, typical jingoism.
Here's a sterotype buster for you. I used to live in rural vermont for awhile. Some of the most inbred brain dead redneck hillbillies I ever met lived there,beat the pants off some of the good ole boys around here where I live now in north georgia with just sheer lameness, along with pleasant people, and people who could hold up their end of a conversation without effort. Now you wouldn't think that because of the "understood stereotype" of various regions, but really, regional bias based on false claims is just as bogus a junk science as any other loon concept.