[tlhIngan Hol] [The Little Prince] Is {DI'raq} "sheep" new canon?

[Lieven L. Litaer]

Am 01.09.2018 um 11:53 schrieb Daniel Dadap:
> I think my question was whether “DI'raq motlh” implies that an ordinary sheep is a ewe. The original line “that’s not a sheep; that’s a ram” seems to make this sort of implication. Perhaps in a way an ordinary sheep is a ewe, since I imagine that most shepherds keep far more ewes than rams.

That is indeed an interesting question, but not about Klingon, it's more 
a general one that also applies to any language, being French, English 
or German.

The prince was asking for a sheep. The used word "sheep" (french 
"mouton") does not imply any gender. When the pilot drew one with horns, 
the prince said "no, that's a ram" - this IS a specific gender, male. 
It's true that this seems to imply that he was expecting a female sheep 
when he asked for a sheep.

I think that the ambiguity of sheep being used for a female sheep works 
pretty well in Klingon in the first place, as it's using a general term.

---

Conveying this to a different idea, it's like he was asking for a 
"Human". When someone drew a male human, he replied that he was 
expecting a female. - Why he did that? I don't know.


>>> By analogy, would DI'raq be' be a ewe?
>>
>> No, the ewe is a {DI'raq be'}.
> 
> How is that different from what I asked?

I don't know. I think I over-read the word {be'} while answering.
HIvqa' veqlargh! :-)

-- 
Lieven L. Litaer
aka the "Klingon Teacher from Germany"
http://www.klingonisch.de
http://www.klingonwiki.net/En/ReplacementProverb