tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Aug 10 13:33:32 1994

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ghItlh ~mark:
>>>My guess would be:

>>>ghorgh Hov'a' So'DI' maS qaSbogh wanI'

>>Wrong. Too long to express such a frequently used single concept.

>"Wrong"??  That's awfully strong...  Is it "wrong" to say "The anniversary
>of the day on which my mother bore me" instead of "birthday"?  Where's the
>grammatical mistake?  Perhaps it's less than ideal, or un-Zipfean, but not
>"wrong".  A common event.  Maybe.  But think of all the centuries so many
>Terran languages did quite happily with no word for it at all.  I strongly
>doubt languages of most pre-literate cultures have a word for it, and also
>would make do with circumlocutions like this.

Whoa. i didn't say /grammatical/ mistake. Don't take my "Wrong!" to be
anything more than merely a semi-meaningless exclamation to lay out my
disagreement. Perhaps i should tone down my postings to a more mature
temperament. i'm very eccentric, and i just write the way i talk (at least,
it's the way i talk when i'm among friends), but since none of you have ever
observed me in my normal social interactive environment, you don't get it.
i'll try to tone down my often wild posting style.

ANYWAYS, back to the point.

>Besides, what's "too long"?  I remember someone on another list complaining
>about another constructed language, that it's word for "birthday" was too
>long.  And I pointed out that French (in full form) has no less than seven
>syllables (anniversaire de naissance), and four in short form (also too
>long for this guy).  I've been looking over Cherokee, and the word for
>"my wife" is something like six or seven syllables, at least!  I bet no
>Klingon would ever believe that we waste three whole syllables on a concept
>as basic as "understand".

Oh come now. I'm sure the French form sounds very elegant. They would wince
at our ugly Germanic "birthday"! Cherokee is like that anyhow, I thought. Now
Klingons are a highly technical society. That it doesn't have a short form to
express "eclipse" would just be a joke. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if
Okrand suddenly out with a monosyllablic for it. Also given that Klingon
prides its pithiness and efficiency of syllabication, such a form would never
enter usage outside poetry. That's all. zap


guido*  (for whom the music is just never loud enough)




ghItlh 'o': BTW, for those of you who don't think that {maSQIb'a'} is
accurate, I'm describing a *solar* eclipse. It is the shadow of the moon upon
the planet. But the other type would of course need another word. That's
easy: {yuQQIb'a'}.



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