tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Jun 05 13:09:57 1999
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Re: Love
ja' 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*?
First, {muSHa'} does *not* appear in canon. Second, the problem with trying
to use it as a direct translation for the English verb "love" is that there
are a great many different meanings for that English word. It's very likely
that {muSHa'} fits one of those meanings, and it's probably reasonable to use
"love" as a translation for {muSHa'} most of the time, but they are not going
to be the same idea in all cases.
"I love chocolate" and "I love my parents" don't use the word "love" the same
way in *my* mind. I certainly wouldn't translate them the same way into any
other language unless I already knew of a similarly wide-reaching word to use
in that language. One of the side effects of my expressing ideas in Klingon
is that I end up thinking very hard about what exactly I mean by common vague
English terms like "have" and "do" and "love". If I'm speaking English, I'm
not forced to be decisive about what I'm saying. In Klingon, I end up being
very specific about what I want to get across.
yuch vISoptaH 'e' vItIvchu'.
vavwI' SoSwI' je vISaHqu'.
be'nalwI'mo' jInong.
All can be translated using the English verb "love", but all are different.
-- ghunchu'wI'