tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Jun 03 12:31:04 1999

Back to archive top level

To this year's listing

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

Re: Love

I was not trying to imply that which you read in what I said.  {-be'} does 
indeed negate an action.  {-Ha'} does indeed undo the action.  What I was 
trying to point out was the misunderstanding that can occur through 
TRANSLATION of the words.  Klingons have no problems with {par} and 
{parHa'}, and we have no problems with "like" and "dislike," but a problem 
may occur when translating from one language to another.

I'm not denying the possibility of a Klingon version of what ghunchu'wI' 
pointed out: words like disheveled, unkempt, disgruntled, mistaken, and 
decant.  Perhaps somewhere along the line there was a word {muSHa'} "love," 
and because the {-Ha'} was there Klingons decided to treat it as the 
suffix, and so it became {muS} "detest" with {-Ha'} added.  This would 
indicate a slightly different way of looking at the word.

Until we know more about the etymology of these words (or until we get 
examples from Klingons), I suggest using the suffixes exactly as they are 
presented in TKD: {-be'} "negate," {-Ha'} "undo/do wrongly."  Thus, 
{muSHa'} is "undo hate" or "hate wrongly," whatever that means.  {parHa'} 
is given to us as "like," but that is the current Klingon usage (something 
we don't have for {muSHa'}), and we know that for THIS word, {par}, the 
"undo like" or "like wrongly" definition means "like" to a Klingon.

It doesn't matter what it means to an English-speaker.  All that matters is 
what it means to a Klingon.

SuStel



jatlh qa'ral:
My point (and I don't think you disagreed) is this: if /muSHa'/ is 
translated as *love* in canon (is it?), and we know no other verb for 
*love* in a verb-centered
language, could it be that /muSHa'/ does in fact mean *to love*? Perhaps, 
when appended to certain verbs, /-Ha'/ and /-be'/ don't just undo or negate 
the action but
transform it into its opposite. (This is what SuStel's recent explanation 
of /parHa'/ implied to me.) Then /muSHa'/ could become as strong and 
independent a word in
Klingon as, say, *independent* is in English.

Back to archive top level