[tlhIngan Hol] According to Matthew chapter 1 (quotations punctuated)

Daniel Dadap daniel at dadap.net
Mon Jun 3 07:59:18 PDT 2019


Whoah. What’s happening here jay'? I agree with how QeS has interpreted and explained my statements, but since you seem unwilling to accept that, I’ll respond personally. If you re-read what I wrote and what QeS wrote through an objective lens, and frame our interaction as a discussion rather than an argument, I hope you’ll be able to see that I’m not claiming the things you seem to think I am.

> On Jun 2, 2019, at 22:21, mayqel qunen'oS <mihkoun at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> You're going to extremes to justify your initial opinion which was
> wrong. I'm dead certain, that if we asked 100 people, noone would
> understand that the words are added to the wiki server and not to the
> wiki.
> 
> I have seen again in the past, people trying desperately to prove
> other people wrong.. but this takes the cake.

I’m not trying to prove anybody wrong here. And my initial opinion was nothing more than “what rule are you talking about? why are you adding the word {turwI'}?” How can asking a question be a wrong opinion?

> daniel dadap:
>> Now it’s possible that the studiers of the Klingon language were speaking in the building where the third great meeting occurred, but not during the meeting itself.
> 
> Okrand used the phrase you're referring to, and it is pretty clear
> what he meant. Again, you're twisting everything on your attempt to
> prove your point.

He used the words without the {qach} that I needlessly added. The canon sentence is {qep'a' wejDIchDaq jatlhtaH tlhIngan Hol HaDwI'pu'}. The {qach} is my own non-canon addition. It is only by adding the {qach} that the meaning starts to become ambiguous. Okrand’s usage, as others pointed out, is a good starting point to question whether {-Daq} really does need a *physical* location, and indeed seems to suggest that it doesn’t. QeS additionally pointed out the example of {wa' Dol nIvDaq}. If you want to continue applying {-Daq} only to physical locations out of an abundance of caution, that’s certainly your right, but I’ve personally seen enough evidence to convince myself that the physicality of the location is not a necessary condition for the use of {-Daq}. This is my own opinion and I won’t try to convince others of it, but I feel confident in it by now.

> Since you're relatively new in this language, I'll give you an advice.
> 
> When you're wrong about something admit it; learn something and move
> on. Everyone here, even people with decades of experience, have been
> proven wrong from time to time.

Of course everyone knows the proverb {QaghmeylIj tIchID; yIyoH}. Even before I knew this proverb, I have lived by it. I immediately admitted that my accidental use of what looked like a QAO was wrong. I openly approached the whole {-Daq} thing from an initial position of ignorance, as well as the meaning of {chel}.

When I did find the rule you seemed to be talking about, I questioned whether adding {turwI'} to satisfy the assumed physicality requirement really made things better. That’s not the same as saying that it’s wrong to add {turwI'} to that sentence. I *think* what your objection to my line of questioning comes down to is interpreting my suggestion that {wI'qIy turwI'Daq mughl'ghach vIchel} *could* mean that it’s being added to some part of the server besides the wiki as a suggestion that it *does* mean that. Obviously, if you say the sentence as you have it, it would most likely be interpreted with meaning that you intended, but as QeS said, by adding the word {turwI'}, you are creating an ambiguity that didn’t previously exist.

To be absolutely clear:

* I agree that {-Daq} should be reserved for nouns that represent locations.
* I’m not convinced that the location needs to be physical.
* *If* we work from the premise that virtual locations are okay as well (which they seem to be) then {wI'qIyDaq} is sufficient.
* *If* {wI'qIyDaq} is sufficient, then {wI'qIy turwI'Daq} might make one question what the word {turwI'} is doing there.
* Questioning the presence of the word doesn’t mean that using the word is wrong.
* As one questions the presence of the word, one *could* wonder whether it means something is being added to the server but not the wiki.

> But trying to be smart doesn't score you any points.

Who is trying to score points here? This isn’t a competition; I’m trying to ask questions and talk about Klingon grammar and vocabulary, for my own education and for the education of others. It was absolutely not my intention to start an argument or to claim that anything you did was wrong, and indeed I don’t think it is wrong. I was merely pointing out that by adding another word, to satisfy the rules as you choose to interpret them, it opens up the possibility for the reader to misunderstand your meaning. Leaving the word out leaves that possibility closed. Leaving it out seems like it should be allowed, based on what multiple others have said, each of whom has more years of experience than both of us combined and then some.

> And as far as the {chel} is concerned.. You're trying to force on this
> verb, a very limited context, which Ca'Non so far hasn't ever done.
> And all this in an attempt to prove that the initial sentence was
> wrong.
> 
> Again, admit that you didn't know, instead of trying to be smart.

I literally said I don’t know what {chel} means for sure. How is that not admitting that I don’t know? I’m not trying to force a meaning onto the word; I’m stating that I don’t know how it’s meant to be used, listing possible meanings, which include the meaning that you appeared to have intended, and citing an example that provides evidence to support a different meaning. I even literally said that even if it does refer to arithmetic, that doesn’t prevent it from also meaning what you meant. What am I doing wrong here?

For what it’s worth, QeS provided a canon example of {chel}, that I hadn’t been aware of, which supports using it for non-arithmetic meanings of “add”, and for this I thank her. I’m fully satisfied with this example and it is currently my personal belief that {chel} can be used for non-arithmetic meanings of “add”, and I additionally suspect that it can likely be used for arithmetic meanings as well, but to be safe I’ll probably choose to use {boqmoH} in case it turns out that it can’t.



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