#vli

CTTO: @compulsivewriter

Na’Shaya! You don’t have it wrong, they are both alternate names for the planet Vulcan. The reason there are two separate words is actually because they come from two different languages! What we think of as “Vuhlkansu” is Golic Vulcan, which was developed by a linguist called Mark Gardner working with the Vulcan Language Institute group in the late 80s to mid 90s. This is the most complete and canon-compliant attempt at developing Vulcan as a language, so it is the most widely studied and pretty much the only one that survives in the Trek community today. The word T’Khasi was actually first proposed by Diane Duane in Spock’s World (1989) as part of her Ancient Vulcan language (which is in itself unrelated to Golic Vulcan), but it was soon adopted by the VLI and because of this, it’s the most popular name for the planet Vulcan. Ah’rak, on the other hand, comes from a separate attempt at developing a Vulcan language, this one by a linguist called Marketa Zvelbil and her father in the 90s. I am unsure if anything of the Zvelbils’ Vulcan has survived beyond vestigial words like this and I’ve failed to find anything related to their language in the archives of their website. When you find two words for the same thing in the dictionary this is usually the reason, such as with cthia/ozhika, aushfa/i’dek etc. I tend to always go with the VLI-approved word because it makes the language more consistent, and also a lot of non-VLI words cannot be written in Vulcan calligraphy/standard script because those are based off Golic Vulcan specifically. If you want an in-canon explanation, you can always headcanon that they come from different dialects or that one is an ancient word and the other one is modern. I hope that made sense and didn’t create more questions than it answered... LLAP! 🖖

Not very active between promotions

CTTO: Wristwatch collector

CTTO: @techno2025

CTTO: Wristwatch collector

CTTO: @compulsivewriter Inspired by: Wristwatch collector