tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Jan 05 09:18:45 1997
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RE: Gowran's Blessing
- From: "Kenneth Traft" <[email protected]>
- Subject: RE: Gowran's Blessing
- Date: Sun, 5 Jan 97 15:17:31 UT
jatlh Jerryl Evanee:********************************
> Still, for a "culture" that is concerned with the many forms of
honour,
> one would think that more words would be found for the various shades of
> meaning between glory, reknown, honour... We will have to nudge the
> language institute to provide us with better fodder!
jatlh Dr. Schoen:****************************
Nudge all you like, but I don't agree with this kind of "linguistic
relativity" argument (you're not one of those people who still think
Eskimos have hundreds of words for kinds of snow, are you?).
Consider the word "love" in English. Think of all the vastly different
kinds of love we can invoke with this love. I love my wife, I love my dog,
I love the way air smells on a cold autumn morning when I'm out for a walk,
I love deepdish pizza with sausage, pepperoni, bacon, mushrooms, and extra
cheese. I assure you I don't love these things in the same way, nor would
any native English speaker be confused. The subtlety is understood at the
cultural level. It's not the language's fault that such subtleties don't
translate worth a damn.
Lawrence
*************************************************************************
The Greeks did use different words for love. From their persepect it seems
LOVE was an important concept and whether I felt phila or eros or one of the
other's it was important to have the word. I'm of course not a Greek scholar,
but I was told there were about 16 words for love from storge (not sure of the
spelling) to agape.
Although Klingon doesn't seem to be overly concerned with large variations on
words. The frequent use of CLIPPED KLINGON seem to indicate that the culture
is more based on brevity because of their warrior ways. Interesting to note
may be the need to recognize everything they do in regards to the central
concept of HONOR which is focal to the culture.
I think Jerryl may have some validity due to the Klingon culture:
In the traditional sense, the Klingon people hold honor above
life -- although as with any culture, high-level politics and
personal gain get in the way.
>From the KLINGON DATA BASE -- INDIVIDUALS -- KLINGONS on the Microsoft
Network's Star Trek Continuum.
The full text talks of HONOR in different forms, but relates it all back to
Klingon Honor. From this and others may seem to support Dr. Schoen's claim
about Honor being absorbed in the Culture as American's have done with LOVE.
Sorry if I rambled too much. <<reH batlh ghajjaj yInlIj>>
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:: Dr Lawrence M Schoen, Director :: The KLI is a nonprofit ::
:: The Klingon Language Institute :: tax exempt corporation ::
:: POB 634, Flourtown, PA 19031 USA :: DaH HuchlIj'e' ghonob ::
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:: [email protected] :: http://www.kli.org :: 215/836-4955 ::
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