tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Sep 10 09:33:04 2013
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Re: [Tlhingan-hol] do {vIttlhegh} become {ngo'} or {qan}?
Voragh:
> KGT 130: The word {ngo'} in the phrase above means old as opposed to new. Thus, it would be applied to objects or ideas, but not to animals or people. To say that a person is extremely old, the phrase would be {qan; QI'tu' rur} ("He/she is as old as Qui'Tu").
I missed this when I was skimming the thread earlier. I guess this
rules out {jup ngo'}.
Also, now that I think about it, {jup ngo'} may be ambiguous: does it
mean a friend whom I did not meet recently, or someone who is no
longer a friend?
The Chinese character 舊 incidentally is used as a prefix meaning "ex-"
in front of such things as boy/girlfriends and teachers (i.e., a
舊-teacher is someone who used to be your teacher, as oppose to a
老-teacher who is a teacher who is advanced in years). So it can be
applied to people, but describes their status rather than their age.
So KGT rules out {ngo'} applied to people. But it doesn't rule out
{qan} applied to things. Although, since a proverb is basically an
idea, the KGT explanation would seem to support that {vIttlhegh ngo'}
is the correct way to describe an "old" proverb.
--
De'vID
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