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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 12/18/2019 2:09 PM, qurgh lungqIj
wrote:<br>
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<div dir="ltr">On Wed, Dec 18, 2019 at 12:50 PM SuStel <<a
href="mailto:sustel@trimboli.name" moz-do-not-send="true">sustel@trimboli.name</a>>
wrote:<br>
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<div>On 12/18/2019 12:24 PM, qurgh lungqIj wrote:<br>
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<blockquote type="cite">Klingons mate. Humans mate too.
They might label it "making love", "having sex",
"shagging", "doing it", "making the beast with two
backs" or something else to try to differentiate it from
what the rest of the biological world does, but it's
still mating. <br>
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<p>Sure, but what we're interested in is labels, or words.
Outside of a science-fiction context, nobody speaking
modern English says <i>mate</i> to refer to people
having sex.</p>
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<div>I know people who speak modern English and use mate to
refer to people having sex outside of sci-fi. You really
shouldn't make generalizations about a billion and a half
people unless you personally know them all. <br>
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<p>I do. I know them all. Personally.<br>
</p>
<p>I'll allow the exception that the socially awkward types who
gravitate to science fiction and talk in a way that others
consider weird might say that people <i>mate</i> with each other
outside of a science fiction context. But that's the exception
that proves the rule: the way these people talk is considered
weird.</p>
<p>I'll also allow the possibility of anthropological jargon that
might use the word that way.</p>
<p>But not in a mainstream way.<br>
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<p>Can you give an example in which someone would non-weirdly talk
about people mating?<br>
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<div dir="auto">Or is it primarily used for
animals ?<br>
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<div>Humans and Klingons <b>are </b>animals. </div>
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<p>But languages usually distinguish between people and
non-people, and Klingon basically does this in its
capable-of-using-language suffixes and its pronouns. The
distinction here may be important in Klingon. It is in
English.<br>
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<div>But often Klingon does the opposite of what languages
usually do. If something is important to English, it's
probably not important for Klingon.</div>
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<p>This is demonstrably untrue. "Do the opposite of other languages"
was not a design goal of Klingon. "Seem alien" was a design goal,
but this mostly manifested in its unlikely sound inventory, its
uncommon OVS syntax, and its color words. Far, far more often,
Klingon works the SAME as other languages, especially English.
Sometimes it does so so well it seems apparently that Okrand
didn't even notice he was doing it until it was pointed out to him
(e.g., the prefix trick).</p>
<p>You simply can't judge Klingon grammar by assuming that however
English handles something, Klingon does the opposite.<br>
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<div> I don't think Klingon uses those suffixes and pronouns
to distinguish between "people" and "non-people", but
between if the speaker believes that "thing" can, or cannot,
communicate with them.</div>
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<p>Which is why I said Klingon "basically" does this. If we could
divorce Klingon from Star Trek and speak it only in the real
world, the difference between <i>capable of using language</i>
and <i>person</i> would be almost zero. (Any exceptions are still
only theoretical at this point.) A lot of the things we don't call
people in the real world would be called people in the Star Trek
universe. A horta, for instance, is a person. The actual list of
things that are capable of language but are not people is small,
and a lot of them are considered edge-cases. A starship computer,
for instance: it's certainly not a person, but does it use
language? I'd bet even Klingons would hesitate to answer that.</p>
<p>So no, <i>capable of using language</i> is not identical to <i>person,</i>
but neither is it very far away. It's certainly close enough to
recognize that saying that "Humans and Klingons are animals"
doesn't really address the question raised. WE are the ones who
brought up the person-vs-animal argument of <b>ngagh/nga'chuq </b>as
pure speculation; if you'd rather frame it as
capable-of-using-language-vs-not-capable-of-using-language<b> </b>argument
of <b>ngagh/nga'chuq,</b> then do so.<br>
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<div> Something could consider itself "people" but lack the
ability to communicate that to a Klingon speaker, or a
Klingon speaker might misunderstand something as being
communication when it's not. <br>
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<p>At this point you seem to be questioning the meaning of the word
<i>people.</i> In a real-world dictionary you'll find that it
means a human being. As I alluded to above, in a universe with
Klingons, living rock-pizzas, energy beings, and sentient
androids, the meanings of the words <i>person</i> and <i>people</i>
will be a bit broader. Whether a Klingon correctly recognizes a
thing as language-capable or not is the Klingon's problem, not the
language's problem.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"Wowee," said Zaphod, "Zappo."</p>
<p>"Incredible!" breathed Arthur, "the people...! The things...!"</p>
<p>"The things," said Ford Prefect quietly, "are also people."</p>
<p>"The people..." resumed Arthur, "the... other people..."<br>
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<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
SuStel
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://trimboli.name">http://trimboli.name</a></pre>
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