[tlhIngan Hol] pseudo-Klingon words from the paq'batlh

SuStel sustel at trimboli.name
Thu Jul 4 05:04:09 PDT 2019


On 7/4/2019 7:11 AM, Rhona Fenwick wrote:
> ghItlhpu' SuStel, jatlh:
> > _Hu'rIn lu'uchmeH ghopDu'chaj lo' /orcs./
>
> jIHvaD loQ jum; qatlh DIvI' Hol pab pol /orcs/? qatlh /orc/pu' Dajun? 
> (...'ach /yrch/ Dalo'nISbe'ba' :) )

ghot pong 'oHmo' _Hu'rIn'e' 'ach Segh 'oHmo' /orc/'e'.

At some point you have to decide what exactly a proper noun is. The word 
/human/ is, for example, a common noun, but the word /Klingon/ is a 
proper noun. Sometimes people writing about Star Trek try to correct 
this by capitalizing /Human/ as well.

Tolkien's capitalization for elves, orcs, dwarves, and so on changes 
depending on which book you're looking at. He never capitalizes /troll,/ 
however. His choice to treat some "species" as proper nouns in some 
books is a personal convention, and it need not be followed at all times.

There's an old role-playing game called /Star Frontiers/ in which the 
various intelligent race-names are all capitalized, and so they 
capitalize /Human/ as well. I always take it the other way, figuring 
that if /human/ is a common noun to humans, then /yazirian/ is a common 
noun to yazirians, /dralasite/ is a common noun to dralasites, and 
/vrusk/ is a common noun to /vrusk./ I adopt a narrower definition of 
what constitutes a proper noun.

So I made a choice: /orc/ is a common noun, not a proper noun, just as 
I'll treat *tlhIngan, romuluSngan,* and *tera'ngan* as common nouns. 
It's just a personal convention. Given that we're talking about personal 
conventions to mark proper nouns, I figure I'm entitled. :)

-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name

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