tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Apr 23 10:27:32 1999
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Re: <nugh> for nation
qa'ral wrote:
: I'd like to nominate (society, group of people) (or perhaps some compound
containing <nugh>) as an alternate translation of *nation*.
:
: I'm no political scientist and no more than an aspiring Klingonist, but as I
understand it, a *nation* is neither a place nor a political formation but a
*people* with a shared history, culture, territory, etc. A nation usually
exerts or seeks to exert political control over the territory with which it
identifies, and the belief that a nation needs its own state and that the
world
is naturally composed of such *nation-states* is what we generally mean by
*nationalism*. When we (as at least we Americans tend to do) use the words
*nation* and *state* interchangeably, we are forgetting that the two often do
not coincide and that several centuries of international conflict have been
unable to put it right.
majQa'! That was exactly the word I was struggling to remember in my last
post.
{nugh} is perfect for translations of things like "Nation of Islam", "the
Navajo Nation", "Alien Nation". This is also the appropriate word for the
"People of Israel" - in Hebrew *'am Yisra'el* - meaning the Jewish people, not
the citizenry of the modern state. {ghotpu'} and {nuvpu'} "people" aren't
quite right as they seem to refer to a group of individuals - the plural of
"person" - not a collective. For qa'ral and the other Russian speakers (hi
Qov!), this is the difference between *narod* (e.g. *russkii narod*) and
*liudi* (e.g. *russkie liudi).
{Sep} works for "nation/state" in the political sense. Thus: {*Israel nugh}
"the People of Israel" vs. {*Israel Sep} "the State of Israel".
In other contexts, {qum} "government" - {wo'} "empire" for Klingons - might
do. For example when contrasting one's loyalty to the state {qum} vs. loyalty
to one's House {tuq}.
: P.S. I'm still hoping for an answer to my question about Klingon names.
And you'll get one when I get home, where I keep the rest of my files. Marc
Okrand wrote a post about this very subject on the Star Trek: Continuum's
startrek.klingon newsgroup. Meanwhile,
bIboH. yIjotchoH!
You're impatient. Calm down! KGT
--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons