[tlhIngan Hol] Expressing "all of us"

mayqel qunenoS mihkoun at gmail.com
Fri Feb 2 13:23:43 PST 2018


SuStel:
> Except it goes in the opposite direction as
> well. You like it when Klingon says simply
> what English expresses only with complexity,
> but you dislike it when English (or Greek) says
> simply what Klingon expresses only with
> complexity.

oh.. You're right ! Excellent point.. I hadn't thought of that !

SuStel:
> It's exactly the same thing. Klingon is not
> designed to be the most efficient language
> ever, despite the talking points that get
> thrown around here sometimes. It has its
> strengths and its weaknesses, just like any
> other language. That's what makes it good.

It's not just good. It's awesome. It's outstanding. It's amazing ! I
wouldn't trade klingon for any other artificial language. Not vulcan, not
quenya, not dothraki, not valyrian, not anything else.

And if I often complain to the point of possibly irritating people, is
exactly because I love klingon and can't stop wishing for more tools to
work with, and expand the ability to express myself through klingon.

'ej DaH, DujwIj vISo' 'ej logh HurghtaHghachDaq vIngab.

maja'chuqta'mo' jIH latlh toQDujmey je, jIbel..

~ nI'ghma

On Feb 2, 2018 10:57 PM, "nIqolay Q" <niqolay0 at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> 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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