tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Jul 11 15:06:50 1997
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Re: We are klingons
- From: "Neal Schermerhorn" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: We are klingons
- Date: Fri, 11 Jul 97 22:07:23 UT
ghItlh William Cody:
><thlIngan maH> WOULD mean "We are Klingon", as in the Klingon race. To say
>"We are Klingons"plural, would have to be <tlhInganpu' maH>. Without the
><-pu'> it would not grammatically correct to say it means "We are
>Klingons"plural. Well??
jIQoch. tlhIngan maH is given as a Marc Okrand version of "We are Klingons!"
in The Klingon Way, page 3. This is, then, clearly correct usage, as it is
this type of example we base ALL we discuss here!
But even without citing canon - remember, all plural suffixes are optional,
and in some cases not used at all. (Haw'pu' yaS 'ar = How many officers fled?
- it can never be *Haw'pu' yaSpu' 'ar*) Plurals are just not as important in
most discourse in Klingon as they are in English. The lack of a plural alone
does not mean that the noun is singular. The presence of a plural, to me,
emphasises the plurality.
tlhIngan maH! is BOTH We are Klingon! and We are Klingons! - but this sense of
"Klingon" is not the sense of 'one Klingon' - it is a collective noun.
Human maH = We are Human. We are Humans.
BUT
Human jIH = I am Human. I am a Human.
Both mean two things - the fact that we belong to the group called Human,
and/or the fact that I am an individual Human, or we are individually Humans.
These are two senses of Human - the same, I am sure, applies to Klingon.
tlhInganpu' maH is not wrong at all - it means the same thing as one sense of
tlhIngan maH - but it lacks the breadth that the latter version imparts.
That's all.
Qermaq