tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Jun 09 06:20:22 1998
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Re: A Matter of Honor
According to Alan Anderson:
>
> ja'pu' qoror:
> >Hmm... in the novelization of "All Good Things", Worf was thinking at one
> >point that it was rather strange that Klingon only had one word for honor,
> >{batlh}, which could mean everything from honorable conduct of a judge to
> >honor between friends, while Eskimo had so many words for "snow."
> >...
> >This is wrong of course, but perhaps there is some type of distinction
> >along those lines between {batlh} and {quv}.
>
> ja' Voragh:
> >OTOH, Worf may have simply been wrong in the novel.
>
> Worf was doubly wrong. I've heard the "Eskimo snow words" claim quite a
> number of times, and I've *never* seen a list of such words. I've got to
> wonder whether there really are that many Eskimo words for snow, and even
> if there are, whether having that many words for snow is remarkable.
I have specifically heard that the whole 13 word count (or was
it 17?) was complete fiction made up by someone who imagined
that perhaps Eskimos had X number of words for "snow", but the
list of words never existed. It is a myth, like the hundredth
monkey, which ALSO never happened. Total fiction. ngoDqoqmey
tIHon.
> Even
> in English, it's easy to come up with a lot of snow-related words:
>
> snow flurry whiteout drift blizzard flakes powder slush dusting pack
> avalanch snowbank snowfall snowstorm snowsquall
majQa'.
> ..plus a large number of other compound words having the syllable "snow",
> and a few slightly less related terms like sleet, hail, and igloo. :-)
>
> Worf was raised among Humans,
and has repeatedly shown himself to be incapable of calling off
a charging targ... What little Klingon langauge he knew when he
was three has obviously faded from decades of DIvI' Hol and
Universal Translators.
> and apparently fell victim to *two* linguistic
> myths: Eskimo has an unusually large number of snow words, and Klingon has
> an unusually small number of honor words. Note that the example concepts of
> "honorable conduct of a judge" and "honor between friends" themselves don't
> use particularly distinct words for "honor" even in English.
We know that Klingon conveys the meaning of honor adjectivally
with {batlh}, as a noun with {batlh} and {quv}, as a verb with
{quv} and as a suffix with {-neS}. Add in words that address
specific aspects of honor, like {matlh}, {yuDHa'}, etc. I don't
think Klingon is slack when it comes to ways to express honor.
> -- ghunchu'wI'
charghwI'