tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Sep 15 15:26:31 1993

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Re: Birthright Song, Dave`s take on it.

...
> {ghaH} can mean "it", I suppose, but it's a *sentient* "it" ...

     I don't know that I'd make the leap between "capable of language" and
"sentient". I think that Okrand was once again trying to enter an alien
mindset here. If a computer can talk, one should probably use "ghaH" to refer
to it instead of "'oH", especially since we don't have gender problems in
such a context in Klingon. If a person cannot talk, I think one should use
"'oH" instead of "ghaH" to refer to him or her, hence a husband might
gleefully introduce his temporarily mute, illiterate wife:

                     be'nalwIj yIqIH
                      roplI' HughDaj
                 ghItlh 'e' ghojbe'taH 'oH'e'
                     jatlhlaHbe' 'oH'e'

     Of course, she would then beat him to a pale shadow of his former self,
but so much for Klingon intimacy...

     A tribble, for another example, could be accused of sentience, but you
would NEVER say, "yIH ghaH." Of course, universal translators could seriously
screw things up. If tribble noises could be translated into Klingon, for
example, we might hear the dreaded: "yIH jIH"

     Perish the thought.

--   charghwI'

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