tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Feb 23 21:07:26 1999
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Re: qama'
- From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: qama'
- Date: Wed, 24 Feb 1999 00:11:56 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)
- Priority: NORMAL
On Tue, 23 Feb 1999 17:23:21 -0800 (PST) [email protected]
wrote:
> In a message dated 2/22/1999 12:20:30 PM US Mountain Standard Time,
> [email protected] writes:
>
> << qama' yIngu'.
>
> You consider that to be convoluted?
>
> I requested {'arlogh} or its equivalent because there was a real
> hole in the language. Others agreed. I asked for ways around the
> lack of it and nobody came up with anything. I could not come up
> with anything. It was a yearning in the language. I was not even
> the person who came up with {'arlogh}. I don't remember who did.
>
> It is actually not important who did. The point is the language
> itself is better off with it. >>
>
>
> I consider {qama' yIngu'} to be inadequate and unfulfilled. Which prisoner
> shall I identify? Although contrived and not of MO's origin, {'arDIch} would
> settle the confusion left by your sentence. It would ask that the respondent
> tell which numbered prisoner is to be identified.
Okrand has explicitly approved of the use of {nuHlIj yIwIv!} as
translation for {Which weapon do you want?} and the use of
{ngu'} as a command to similarly replace other "which"
questions. Your asking for the number of an item is not much
different from any other request to identify which from a group
you are addressing.
> Although it is not a word, I hope MO comes up with the right word for the
> concept. I want the concept unambiguously answered much more than I want to
> invent to word which would fill in the hole.
Note that you don't seem to be drumming up a lot of support for
this. Arguments, yes. Support, no.
And it is not just a personality thing. People are not failing
to back this because it is coming from you. They are failing to
back it because you seem to be the only person who wants this.
Nobody else has voiced much interest in it. Perhaps it is just
not that interesting.
> Is any language better off without words which disambiguate a concept.
> Perhaps so. Our dictionaries are filled with duplicate words for the same
> meaning. We don't need both. We don't need technical terminology AND street
> language. Or, do we?
>
> OTOH, primitive languages grow when having come into contact with languages
> which have concepts not yet covered by words in the native tongues. If a
> language needs to express something, its people find a way.
We've already found a way and explained it to you, but that's
not really what you want. You want personalized service.
Attention. Unique attention.
> Warning: Although we are the Klingon language's people (except for those
> fanatics who firmly believe that there is an Empire of rough-ridged peoples on
> the planet Kronos somewhere out there past Deneb), we are following the
> language solely as a creation of MO. So, even though we discuss how to fill
> the holes, we don't make up words. This is true for me, too. I stir up the
> pot to probe for the correct answers.
You seem to have a rather noble self image as you distract the
list from all but the harshest of arguments about how many
veqlargh can dance on a pin.
> peHruS
charghwI' 'utlh