tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Jul 12 09:05:06 1997
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Re: We are klingons
- From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: We are klingons
- Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 12:05:11 -0400 ()
- Priority: NORMAL
Sorry, Neal, but when you accept that {tlhIngan maH} can mean
"We are Klingon," you are simply incorrect. In English, when I
say "We are Klingon," I am not using "Klingon" as a collective
noun. I'm using it as an adjective. I could as easily say, "We
are proud." Okrand stretches this somewhat when he uses the word
in {tlhIngan Hol} and such, since we translate it as "Klingon
language", using "Klingon" as an adjective. Meanwhile, in
Klingon, the word "Klingon" is a noun and only a noun. The more
literal translation of {tlhIngan Hol} is "language of a
Klingon", or if you consider that it can be plural, "Language of
Klingons".
{tlhIngan maH} means "We are Klingons." It does not EVER mean
"We are Klingon," except in the loosest of translations. What we
have here is a copula. {tlhIngan} = {maH}. Since {maH} is
plural, {tlhIngan} has to be plural, too.
Deal with it.
charghwI'
On Fri, 11 Jul 1997 15:15:50 -0700 (PDT) Neal Schermerhorn
<[email protected]> wrote:
> 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