[tlhIngan Hol] QochHa'

[Will Martin]

What follows is 100% opinion:

I think that Maltz erred when he defined {Qochbe’} as “Agree”. I believe “Agree" should have been defined as {QochHa’}. {Qochbe’} should merely mean that you don’t disagree, which is not quite as negative as agreeing.

By defining “Agree” as {Qochbe’}, we lose the ability to casually express that we neither agree nor disagree. We lose what we have for pretty much every other verb in the vocabulary. The mere negative becomes the antonym, and so the actual expression of the antonym becomes meaningless.

In other words, every other verb has a “be true” value of 1 (no negation), 0 ({-be’}), or -1 ({-Ha’}), but this verb uniquely has only the values 1, -1. There is no zero.

No, I’m not trying to change the definition. I honestly think that it’s a screwup that we have to live with because if we don’t all stick to cannon, then it’s a slippery slope to chaos. Where do we draw the line?

So, I believe that {QochHa’} is technically meaningless, since THE THING THAT IT WAS SUPPOSED TO MEAN, going by the general meaning of {-Ha’} as applied to any other verb in the vocabulary, is covered by the mere use of {-be’}. Thus, having {Qochbe’} mean “agree”, there is never a reason to use {QochHa’}.

We can do logical/linguistic gymnastics pretending to make sense of {QochHa’}, but it is a word that lacks a reason d’être, being redundant, perhaps, with {Qochbe’chu’}.

This is not a new discovery for me. I recognized this over a decade ago, meeting it with an eye roll and a sigh, while building my first personal dictionary.

Language is imperfect. Why should Klingon be different?

charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan

rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.




> On Aug 15, 2019, at 9:03 AM, SuStel <sustel at trimboli.name> wrote:
> 
> On 8/15/2019 7:11 AM, mayqel qunen'oS wrote:
>> SuStel:
>> > So QochHa' can mean undoing a state of  > disagreement, or it can mean disagreeing
>> > with the wrong thing or at an 
>> > inappropriate time.
>> 
>> I would like to discuss this a little more, just to be certain that I understand {QochHa'} correctly.
> I consider the meaning of QochHa' to be a little uncertain, so what I say here is just speculation.
> 
> 
> 
>> By "undoing a state of disagreement", we mean that "we disagreed and now we agree again".
> Yes, or it could just mean that there was an implicit assumption of disagreement that has been proven wrong by me saying I agreed with you all along.
> 
> 
> 
>> By "disagreeing with the wrong thing", we mean that "I thought it was a fox, you thought it was a dog, so we disagreed, although what it actually was, was a sheep".
> No, it would be more like "I don't think it was a fox, I think it's a dog." "But we're talking about the elephant."
> 
> 
> 
>> By "disagreeing at an inappropriate time", we mean that "the time was inappropriate because it was late at night, or because we where disagreeing about feeding the cat while our planet was collapsing".
> It would be like disagreeing with something that wasn't stated to be an objective fact. "I like that." "I disagree!"
> 
> -- 
> SuStel
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