tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Jan 26 18:23:29 2002

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Re: qepHom, qep, qep'a'

ghItlh SuStel:

>Well, just my thoughts about it (it's not an article, nor a study):

Bah! It is of course merely my opinion, but I find none of your suggestions
compelling. To respond to them in order:

a) If the difficulty of pronunciation were a factor, none of us would be
speaking Klingon at all.

b) I won't presume to ascribe motivations to Marc, but one might just as
easily point out that in the interests of avoiding confusing his audience
on all works after TKD, that he simply used only one term. At worst that
makes HISlaH an ugly step-sister, but little more.

c) either a word has a canonical source or it doesn't. This one does. Would
you have me believe that HIja' is somehow *more* canonical because of its
greater frequency?

d) the common ' ending of both HIja' and ghobe' is actually an argument
*against* using HIja'. Similarities between these two words increase
confusion and miscommunication, which is what you don't want in diametric
opposites.


>I'll bet most (not necessarily all) people who use /HISlaH/ do so after a
>conscious effort to give the alternative more use.  I did that with 'a/'ach:
>most people seem to use /'ach/, so I switched to /'a/ and usually use that,
>just to show 'em!

You might be right. Then again, you might be wrong. This is just idle
speculation in general, and a personal anecdote in the case of your use of
'a over 'ach. Mind you, I think you're very likely right, but then again
one might just as easily suggest that the decision is made less on
frequency by other speakers and purely on the basis of some personal sense
of aesthetics. That's why *I* use 'ach more than 'a. I like the way it
sounds. ;)


I'm sure you won't be surprised that I didn't find your suggestions for pI'
over ror to be any more compelling than the batch for HIja' over HISlaH.

I'm sorry if I'm sounding argumentative, or even just cranky. Blame my
training as a researcher. Even when you qualify a remark with "probably
easier..." (as you do in one of your "fat" examples) it's still just
speculation and opinion. I want data. Maybe I should do a study.

Lawrence

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