tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Jun 03 08:35:19 1997

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Re: KLBC: Words for assassin & blade



>Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 12:42:26 -0700 (PDT)
>From: Jim LeMaster <[email protected]>
>
>Mark E. Shoulson wrote:
>> 
>> Um, what's with the English-Klingon one-to-one correspondence you're both
>> presuming here?  Who ever promised there would BE a word (especially a
>> single word) for "assassin"?  What IS an assassin anyway?  You can't
>> translate what you don't understand.  
>********Which is the reason for the original request.  SOMETHING in
>tlhIngan Hol should mean "assassin" if there is an object called an
>"assassin's blade/knife".

Why?  There's a word for an object which is a knife and which has certain
cultural associations, which we in English are pleased to translate
"assassin's knife" because that's the best way to represent those
associations in English, but that need not imply that there has to be a
word for "assassin."  The Klingon term may be unrelated in structure, and
there needn't be any simple term for a person with related associations.

>Form follows function and language follows culture.  There is a need to
>distinguish an assassin's knife from a warrior's knife, so there
>*should* be a way to express the difference.  I do not think that
>"killer" (HoHwI') would be translated as Assassin.  Killers are not
>always assassins, though assasssins are always killers.  Assassin comes
>from Hashishem (sp?), a very special kind of killer from the 12th
>Century.  Indian Thuggees were religious killers, but not assassins, for
>they preferred random acts of murder. 

Yes.  "Killer" is a broader term than "assassin."  So I might fully expect
Klingon to use the word "killer" with added information added *as
necessary*.  You might describe an assassin as a cloaked killer (if that is
the meaning in that most particular case under discussion) or a secret
killer, or a political killer.

~mark


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