[tlhIngan Hol] Expressing "all of us"

[nIqolay Q]

On Fri, Feb 2, 2018 at 3:26 PM, mayqel qunenoS <mihkoun at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 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.
>

​It's true that Klingon is often more concise than English is, but there's
no reason to expect that this would be universally true for all English
utterances. The fact that Klingon is sometimes wordier than English and
sometimes isn't isn't an inherent flaw in the design of the language. I'm
pretty sure all natural languages have some things that they are able to
express concisely and other things they can't.​ There is no inherent
measure of how wordy a concept "should" be.

For instance, English lacks the verb endings of something like Spanish, so
English has to use more words to express subjects, tenses, or aspects than
you might otherwise in Spanish. On the other hand, English is more
comfortable with "noun-noun" type constructions, whereas Spanish usually
requires a "de" in between the words: "orange juice" vs "zumo de naranja".
(If I were familiar with more languages, or at least more familiar with
linguistics, I might have better specific examples off the top of my
head...)

Also, "femoroacetabular impingement" only looks complex because if doctors
use Germanic roots instead of Latinate roots they get their medical
licenses revoked. {DonHa' 'uS Hom 'IvtIH Hom je} "hip bone and leg bone are
misaligned", {'IvtIH Hom tey 'uS Hom} "leg bone scrapes the hip bone", and
{'IvtIH Hom QemjIqmo' jIrHa' 'uS Hom} "leg bone mis-rotates because of the
hip bone socket" all seem to sum up the basic idea.
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