tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Jul 05 08:37:07 2009

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Re: Questions with law'/puS

Doq ([email protected])



There was once a wonderful exchange between two established Klingon  
speakers where one asked if it were true (and he suspected that it  
was) that speaking Klingon forced you to be rude. The other responded  
that it was not true; that instead speaking Terran forced you to be  
vague, wittering and indecisive.

Saying "X is better than Y, right?" is exactly the same thing as  
saying, "Is X better than Y?", except that the latter version avoids  
committing to a proposal of which item the speaker believes is better.  
There is no champion in the weaker version of the question. In the  
stronger version, there is a champion and a challenger, which is far  
more related to Klingon culture than the version you seem to prefer.

I don't see it as something "missing" from Klingon. I see it as an  
alignment between culture and language. Of all impressive things about  
the Klingon language, the thing that impresses me most is the  
alignment of culture and language for this fictional race. It is a  
jewel among fictional languages.

Tolkien can talk about Ent language and how the slowness of speech  
fits the slowness of trees, but Okrand actually did it, rather than  
simply describe it.

Doq

On Jul 2, 2009, at 11:12 PM, Mark J. Reed wrote:

> On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 11:04 PM, Doq<[email protected]> wrote:
>> jIH val law' SoH val puS, qar'a'?
>
> I thought about it, and it'll do in a pinch, but it's not quite what
> I'm looking for.  You appear to be stating ahead of time a belief that
> the answer to the question is yes.
>
> "X is better than Y, right?"
>
> I was looking for a more neutral
>
> "Is X better than Y?"
>
> But I'm assuming we don't actually have a way to say that.  Do'Ha'.
>
>> Doq
>>
>> On Jul 2, 2009, at 10:53 PM, Mark J. Reed wrote:
>>
>>> Do we know how to turn a law'/puS statement into a yes/no question,
>>> e.g. "is X more Y than Z?"
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Mark J. Reed <[email protected]>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
> -- 
> Mark J. Reed <[email protected]>
>
>
>







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