tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Nov 18 15:20:51 1997

Back to archive top level

To this year's listing

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]

Re: maHagh tlhInganpu'

lab ter'eS
>At 09:40 AM 11/18/97 -0800, SuStel wrote:
>>From: Terrence Donnelly <[email protected]>
>>>>You cannot say "we Klingons" in Klingon. You cannot say {maHagh
>>>>tlhInganpu'} for "We Klingons laugh." It just don't work that 
>>>>
>>>Just to pick a nit: How do we know it doesn't work that way? Is it
>>>explicitly forbidden by canon?
>>
>>We don't know (i.e. it is not printed in Okrandian script). It is 
>>firm and unshakable-except-only-by-one-person opinion. It also 
>>silly to me to do it your way. I rely highly on my 
>>instincts in knowing right from wrong in Klingon, and this one is 
>>sounding every alarm.
>
>Arguments of the type "it just doesn't feel
>right" or "it violates my instincts" or even "the language doesn't
>need it" are non-arguments: totally subjective, unanswerable. If we
>all started talking that way, then we might just as well shut down 
>the server and go home. If you don't like a legal construction, then 
>don't use it, but you can't condemn it simply because of that. 

I have no problem with {maHagh tlhInganpu'} or {malop Hoch} or 
{veranganpu' QIp reHoH}.  I could at this point make strong 
statements beginning with "I've been speaking Klingon for almost ten 
years..." (I have, but it's misleading because I only began studying 
it seriously when I joined the KLI) but an argument pitting my 
instincts against SuStel's would be silly.  

Yes, I admit that it *could* be wrong.  Ninety percent of what we say 
that isn't specifically prescribed in TKD or by Okrand, and some of 
what is could be wrong.  I've learned a few languages to the level I 
know Klingon: that is thoroughly knowing all the rules in the basic 
grammar available to me, and having had some other things explained 
to me by someone who knew about the language.  With Klingon I'm 
held to be one of the more skilled speakers.  With the other 
languages my speech is error-ridden and sometimes amusing, because 
there are so many little exceptions, idioms, special cases and normal 
ways of doing things in a real language.  I think {maHagh 
tlhInganpu'} has about the same chance of being correct Klingon as 
{puq jIb vIchIp}.

I'm not going to say anything more, because ter'eS has said it well
below.

> 1. We already know from TKD that a verb with any subject prefix can
> optionally take an expressed pronoun. {maHagh} and {maHagh maH} are
> both legal (tho with a change in emphasis, to be sure).
> 
> 2. We also know that a verb with a third person subject prefix can
> take an expressed noun subject or not: {legh} and {legh yaS} are 
> both OK.
> 
> 3. It seems valid to me to believe that since all three persons
> exhibit the same behavior with pronouns, they can also exhibit the
> same behavior with nouns, namely, the type of behavior already
> exhibited by the third person.
>
> 4. It's not prohibited anywhere in the Okrandian corpus.

- Qov

Back to archive top level