tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Mar 13 14:18:29 2002

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RE: god (was: Re: a word is needed?)

To me the word Qun means a god of some sort, Qun'a'/QunHom means a god
that is more/less godlike than a normal god, which to me seems to be the
same as a Qun (similar type of situation as Doch'a'/DochHom - a thing
with is more/less thingy than a thing).

When it comes to human words for gods, then nearly all of them have real
names. Allah is a proper noun and the name of the Islamic god, Jehovah
is a proper noun and the name of the Jewish/Christian god (based on the
Hebrew I think), and so on with other religions. Therefore if you want
to reference a particular god, use its name, don't use a generalized
word like "god". Most religions consider their god(s) to be THE god(s).
So if I walk up to a Hindu and say, "I worship god" they might think of
a different god from the one I mean. :)

Qunpu'lI' HoHta' tlhInganpu'. yIn Jehovah Allah je 'e' vIHarbe'. Qunpu'
vIparHa'be'. (is that a word?) 

qurgh



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Sean Healy [mailto:[email protected]]
> Sent: Wednesday, March 13, 2002 9:55 AM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: god (was: Re: a word is needed?)
> 
> ><Qun'a'> "great god" (<Qun> plus <-'a'>, the augmentative suffix) may
or
> >may
> >not be an appropriate translation for a single supernatural being in
a
> >monotheistic system, since the <Qun'a'> would still be one among
many.
> 
> Well, in Arabic, the monotheistic god is called Allah, which means
'the
> God'.  We get along fine in English without a definite article on the
> noun,
> but some languages seem to need it, even though it implies there are
other
> gods.  (I suspect English doesn't have it simply because by the time
> modern
> English developed, the English were already steeped in a monotheistic
> culture, whereas the Arabs in the time of Mohammed were polytheistic -
but
> I
> can't say for sure, as I don't know whether Old English put a definite
> article on the word god when referring to the Christian god).
> 
> In any case, the logic for calling the monotheistic god Allah seems to
go
> something like this:
> We have all these false gods, so how do we distinguish the one true
God?
> We'll call him THE god.
> 
> So, since Arabic uses a term that would imply one god among many (or
at
> least among more than one), I see no reason Klingon shouldn't.
> 
> Then again, perhaps 'THE god' doesn't have the same connotations in
Arabic
> as it does in English.  In English, if you say "I saw Robert Redford
at
> the
> grocery store", your friend might ask, "THE Robert Redford",
indicating
> that
> there may be more than one, and they want to make sure it's the one
> they're
> thinking of.  But as I say, perhaps Arabic doesn't work this way.
> 
> In addition, there are indications that primitive Judaism wasn't as
> monotheistic as most people think.  And Muslims certainly don't
consider
> the
> Christian Trinity to be monotheistic.  (I don't have sources for these
> bits
> of info handy, and it probably would be overkill to post them to this
list
> anyway, but if you're really interested, write to me off-list and I'll
> find
> the sources for you.)
> 
> Anyway, for these reasons, I see no problem using {Qun'a'} to refer to
the
> Jewish/Christian/Muslim god (the god of Abraham), or indeed any
> montheistic
> god.  But that's only my opinion.
> 
> Then again, maybe we should take a hint from Sulu and say {qIb
> bo'Degh'a'}.
> 
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