tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Feb 16 00:38:23 1994
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Meaning in Klingon
>From: [email protected]
>Date: Wed, 16 Feb 1994 12:04:45 -0600 (CST)
>>"Meaning" as you're using it is an awfully loaded word in English. The
>>closest I can get to the meaning you seem to be expressing here (which is
>>not the same as the one I used in the word "meaning" in this sentence)
>>would probably be "yIn meq", "life's reason". If you mean just "meaning"
>>as in "intent", something involving "Hech" would be a good place to look,
>>perhaps recasting it so it's a verb.
>Meaning as the Klingons were speaking of in this episode seemed
>at least as loaded as in English.
The Klingons were speaking English, using English idioms. The fact that
they were dressed up as Klingons doesn't make their use of the English
language any less idiomatic. It's not that I think the Klingons cannot
express the concept you're calling "meaning", it';s just that describing
that concept in your post as nothing but "meaning" leaves a great deal open
to the imagination. Words have meaning too, but that's not the "meaning"
you were referring to.
>>>In regards to the word "love" in Klingon, am I correct that it
>>>is backwards with respect to English?
>>>That is, in English, to be someone's love, the person is defined
>>>as being the object of the verb love. In Klingon, to love
>>>is to make someone your love.... just my humble understaning
>>>from only a few days of Klingon. :-)
>>I think you have it backwards; from my reading of the dictionary, and the
>>line in whichever movie it was, "bang" is a noun, meaning "love" in the
>>sense of the object of love. One who is loved. A better translation would
>>be the noun "beloved". So "bangwI' SoH" means "you are my beloved."
>I believe that is what I said. In English, love is a verb, in Klingon
>it is a noun. So, in English, the noun "beloved" is derived from
>the verb "love", while in Klingon the verb for "to love" is derived
>from the noun "bang."
What Klingon verb for "to love"? We have as yet no evidence for the
exstence of such a verb; it's entirely possible that one does not exist and
they use only the noun. We have no verb for "to be big", but make do with
"to be" and an adjective, nor a verb for "to be a captain", but again make
do with the noun and verbs and phrases like "be" and "hold the rank of."
I think I misunderstood your initial post. I took it to mean that in
English, one's "love" is the object of the activity of loving, while in
Klingon, one's "bang" was somehow the one doing the loving or some such
(which is wrong). I now see what you mean; that the English seems to have
started with the verb and derived the noun, while Klingon, so far as we
know, has only the noun.
~mark