tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Dec 18 08:42:02 1995
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Re: Crispin
>Date: Fri, 15 Dec 1995 10:13:56 -0800
>From: "Christian Matzke" <[email protected]>
>On 15 Dec 95 at 9:41, Elizabeth C. Hoyt <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> One thing that bugged me in the novel is that, at one point, Capt.
>> Kirk refers to a Klingon ship as "she", then his nephew, Peter,
>> tells him that Klingon ships are called "he".
>>
>> I have no idea how that is possible tlhIngan Hol. [Shrug] I guess
>> she didn't ask MO about that one.
>Well, just because the pronoun dosn't make the distinction, Klingons
>still could. Also, Kirk was clearly not as well versed in things of a
>Klingon nature as his nephew.
I'm inclined to believe that the distinction can be made even without a
pronoun. Sure, Klingon can't talk about a ship being a "he" or "she" in
the pronoun... but they'd never say, for example, that the Imperial Warship
*bortaS bIr* is fine old lady (while Kirk might call the Enterprise that).
They'd refer to it as a brave fighting man, etc (assuming, of course, that
the whole business about Klingon referring to their ships as male is
correct in the first place). You don't need pronouns for it.
~mark