tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Oct 06 01:43:17 2002
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Re: nuralngan
At 00:20 02-10-06 -0400, lab SuStel
>DloraH:
>'a tlhIngan Hol jatlhlu'DI' 'ej Hol ponglu'DI', jatlhnISlu'law' <Hol>!!
>
>I've always taken it as a fact that you have to use the word /Hol/ when
>talking about a particular language. After all, we tell beginners that the
>language isn't called /tlhIngan/, it's called /tlhIngan Hol/. And while
>this is stated explicity in KLINGON FOR THE GALACTIC TRAVELER (p. 10), we'd
>been telling this to beginners long before this book was published (see, for
>instance, the name of this mailing list).
>
>So where did this rule come from? Why CAN'T beginners call the language
>/tlhIngan/? Was this convention created by the early list denizens? Is
>there a HolQeD article explaining this? I certainly can't find any
>reference to this in THE KLINGON DICTIONARY.
>
> Prove to me that */tlhIngan vIjatlh/ is wrong. I want a reference.
The reference is the Appendix on p.170. It translates
Do you speak Klingon?
as
tlhIngan Hol Dajatlh'a'
and
I cannot speak Klingon
as
tlhIngan Hol vIjatlhlaHbe'.
This proves that Marc Okrand considers tlhIngan Hol the correct translation
of Klingon (meaning the language).
You could argue that it does not prove that tlhIngan by itself is not also
a valid translation.
There are some languages on Earth that use the word for a nationality as
the word for a language, but there are other Earth languages that do
not. Therefore it is not a language universal, and we cannot assume that
because it makes sense in English that the noun for the person can be used
for the language.
p. 171 naDev tlhInganpu' tu'lu', along with dozens of TKW proverbs,
demonstrates that the noun tlhIngan refers to a person.
>Anyway, my point is that if /Hol/ IS required, then the word /nuralngan/ is
>REALLY weird. I'd have expected /nuralngan Hol/. /nuralngan/ looks like it
>should mean "inhabitant of Nural." "Chinese," "Japanese" and so on are not
>nouns meaning "inhabitant of XXX," except in the sense of an entire people.
>You can say /tera'ngan ghaH/ "He is an Earthling," but you can't say "He is
>a Chinese." You CAN say "He is Chinese," but then you've got an adjective,
>not a noun.
I agree that nuralngan would be very weird if it referred to the language
and not the person. Do we have any evidence that we do not refer to an
inhabitant of Nural as a Neuralese?
Your statement that you cannot say "he is a Chinese" is not entirely
correct. The usage "a Chinese" for "a Chinese person" exists in my area,
but has pejorative connotations. A Google search turned up several
sentences in literate English text that used "he is a Chinese" with Chinese
acting as a noun, including a New York Times book review.
It is my opinion that Neuralese is the word for individuals from Nural, and
that nuralngan Hol is their language.
I like it when people challenge assumptions, but I believe that demanding
<tlhIngan Hol> does not require assumptions, while permitting <tlhIngan>
alone to represent the language does.