tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Jul 25 08:11:20 1996
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Re: philosophy - I think, therefore I am.
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>Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 02:04:12 -0700
>From: "A.Appleyard" <[email protected]>
> Jeremy Cowan <[email protected]> wrote:-
>> ... a Klingon mind, something either exists, or it doesn't. There's no
>> discussion to be had. ...
>And, as I explained before, sometimes it is of very practical importance
>whether some object exists or not and therefore there needs to be a way to say
>simply and directly that object X exists or that it doesn't exist (e.g. if X
>is a rumoured remote planet alleged to contain big mineral deposits). {X
>tu'lu'} = "one finds X" has been suggested: but X existing is not the same as
>someone discovering it.
As marqoS already said, we seem to manage just fine with what we have, as
do other languages that lack a word that means "exist" to the exclusion of
other things. Even in English, we use "there is no dilithium here" using
the word "to be" which has gobs of other meanings, with no mention of
"exist." And indeed, "there is" has no implication of location either.
You could see someone saying "There is a spiritual force, but it is nowhere
in the universe." If it's nowhere in the universe, how can you say
"there"?? Because "there is" means existence in English. Similarly,
"tu'lu'" is not talking about the putative something that's finding
whatever it is, it's talking about the object, that it's "there to be
found." This is plain in canon: "QuvlIjDaq yIH tu'be'lu'jaj" doesn't mean
"I hope that nobody ever finds tribbles in your co-ordinates; it's okay if
they're there, just so long as nobody finds them." It means "may your
co-ordinates be free of tribbles, may they NOT BE PRESENT, may they NOT
EXIST there." "naDev tlhInganpu' tu'lu'" doesn't care who finds the
Klingons, if anyone, just that they are there to be found hereabouts.
Languages like Hebrew regularly use "is/are found" for existence (I know
there's also a verb "qayyam" for exist, but in most normal speech you just
say "nimtza"). It's not that Klingon couldn't possibly have a word for "to
exist", but there isn't really a need for it.
~mark
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