[tlhIngan Hol] Expressing "all of us"

[mayqel qunenoS]

SuStel:
> How would you say *SuQomtaH* in Standard American English
> (that's the newscaster variety)? (Hint: SAE has no *y'all *or *youz*.)
> Can you say it as simply as the Klingon?

No, of course not.

The ability of klingon to provide us with a way to express a longer english
sentence with fewer words, is something which I always liked in this
language. An ability which is often able to impress.

But the positve impression created by that ability fades, when we come
across the need to express something simple, only to realize that because
there are no tools to do so, we need to pause whatever it was we were
writing, only to start describing in multiple sentences something which
should be expressed in just a few words.

One of course could disagree as to what is simple and what is complex.

In my opinion, phrases as "we all", or "five minutes before dawn" are
simple things to say; "femoroacetabular impingement" on the other hand
isn't.

I realize, that it is impossible for an artificial language to be able to
possess the full potential of a real language.

But I believe, sometimes we just need to say "ok, it's an artificial
language, so there are limits to what we can say and how", than trying to
convince the other that everything is perfect and exactly the way it should
be.

Only qeylIS is perfect. Nothing else in this world is perfect. And if
someone thinks that klingon is perfect, then don't compile wish lists for
qep'a'mey and qepHommey, don't ask for anything more.

Accept everything the way it is right now, because everything is perfect.
So perfect, that not even God himself could do better.

~ nI'ghma

On Feb 2, 2018 8:47 PM, "SuStel" <sustel at trimboli.name> wrote:

> On 2/2/2018 1:14 PM, mayqel qunenoS wrote:
>
> Perhaps, using the time-honored-qeylIS-approved method of writing in a
> retarded-multiple-sentence-way, even if it is in order to say the
> simplest things, is indeed the way to go..
>
> Oh please. What's simple in one language is not necessarily simple in
> another. The very fact that we have multiple forms of "sentence as object"
> shows that Klingon is perfectly comfortable with multiple sentences. Canon
> like *'uSDaj chop; chev* for *chew his arm off!* shows you don't even
> need a special grammatical structure to do it. Every simile does this.
>
> COMBINING MULTIPLE SENTENCES IS *HOW* KLINGON DOES SIMPLE.
>
> The problem you're having isn't that what you want should be simple and
> it's not; it's that one language has a tool the other doesn't and you miss
> it. How would you say *SuQomtaH* in Standard American English (that's the
> newscaster variety)? (Hint: SAE has no *y'all *or *youz*.) Can you say it
> as simply as the Klingon? In Klingon, it's three syllables. In the simplest
> and most precise SAE translation, not losing any meaning or adding any
> ambiguity, I count twelve syllables.
>
> --
> SuStelhttp://trimboli.name
>
>
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