tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Apr 15 10:25:39 2002
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What makes a 'real' language?
- From: "Sean Healy" <[email protected]>
- Subject: What makes a 'real' language?
- Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2002 14:25:32 +0000
>I'll add one thing for the beginners trying to understand the difference
>between the Klingon verb suffix {-lu'} and the English passive voice.
>ghunchu'wI' described a lot about this difference, but the biggest
>difference
>is that the English passive voice has a way of indicating what the subject
>really is, while the Klingon {-lu'} does not.
>
>In other words in Klingon, I can say {Qorwagh ghorlu'} and I can translate
>that
>into the English passive-voiced sentence, "The window is broken," but if I
>start out with the English passive voice sentence, "The window was broken
>by
>Krankor," there is no way to translate that meaning into a Klingon sentence
>using {-lu'}. I can think of ways that people who "encode" English into
>Klingon
>might THINK they can translate that sentence using {-lu'}, but they'd be
>wrong.
Right, but you get the same meaning across with {Qorwagh'e' ghor Qanqor}.
That is, you can put the emphasis specifically on the window. (or am I
mistaken?) (Although, I suppose if this were the conclusion of a mystery
novel, the emphasis would actually be on the doer: The window was broken
by...Krankor! / {Qorwagh ghor...Qanqor'e'!})
Even though we sometimes have to circumlocute a lot, we can say anything in
tlhIngan Hol that we can say in other languages. This is what makes it an
actual language, as opposed to Klingonaase or Richard Adams's Lapine. Some
languages seem primitive to us because the plural of 'dog' is 'dog dog'
(some Polynesian languages) or because there number system consists of 'one,
two, many' (at least one language of the Amazon basin), but all the same
concepts can be expressed. (Although I hope I'd never have to specify
high-order numbers in the example number system, it could be done if it were
important that more specifity than 'many' be expressed.) We may be lacking
a bit of vocabulary, but so were the Pacific islanders when European ships
first came across them (lacking vocabulary for many of the things Europeans
used, that is - that had all the vocabulary they needed for their own
lives).
Ignoring the lack of vocabulary, I can express any thought in tlhIngan Hol
that I can express in English; I can create a grammatical structure that
expresses the same thought, even if I have to substitute the English word
for the missing vocab (or simply circumlocute). (Well, theoretically I can;
my actual skill at this is not yet at great as I'd like.) Does it bother me
that I can't say: 'The better of the two men won the contest', that instead
I have to say: 'There were two men. The first man was better than the
second man. The first man won the contest.'? Well, sometimes it offends my
sense of efficiency, but I can still express that thought.
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