Am 12.04.2019 um 14:41 schrieb De'vID:

not qoHpu''e' neH ghIjlu'.

The existence of this adage makes me fairly confident that there is no
such taboo.

Yes, indeed. Besides, there is a difference between "being scared of
something" and "being afraid to do something".

For instance, a Klingon may say {mughIj Ha'DIbaHvam} to mention that
this animal makes im feel uncomfortable for some reason, but he may be
very brave and touch it anway, so he's not {touching-vIp}.

He is touching-vIp. The suffix -vIp doesn't preclude you overcoming your fear and doing the verb anyway.

The existence of the proverb doesn't give me much confidence to conclude that there is no such taboo. It just suggests to me that there are competing ideals in Klingon society: on the one hand, there is pressure not to admit fear; on the other hand, there is a recognition that understanding one's own fear is empowering. We have similar pressures in our own societies.

The taboo on using -vIp with a first-person subject only addresses one side of those pressures. I imagine that the same people who avoid using first-person -vIp would also avoid using ghIj to admit their own fear. People who espouse the proverb would be less hesitant to use first-person -vIp.

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