Okay, during coffee intake (perhaps before enough of it kicked in), a lightening-like idea hit me for using {law’wI’pu’}. Yes, it’s weird: reH tlhIngan yoH law’, tera’ngan yoH puS. SuvDI’, reH puSwI’pu' jey law’wI’pu’ net Sov. As further evidence, I suggest that {puSwI’} is the etymological root of an English derogatory term that sounds similar. charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.
On Feb 22, 2019, at 3:40 AM, Lieven L. Litaer <levinius@gmx.de> wrote:
I lost the original to message to quote it, but mayqel said he felt strange using {law'wI'}.
The reason is that {law'wI'pu'} does not mean "the many" but the "ones who are many". Again: it does not mean "those multiple people who are lots of single persons altogether" but it means "those people of which each single one is many" which makes no sense.
So, IMHO, {law'wI'} "thing/person which is many" makes no sense at all.
Unless, maybe, in situations where the Borg queen said "I am the one who is many", but that's a very unusual situation, even in English.
If I'd use {law'wI'pu'} in a sentence, it sounds like "the manyers" in English.
....but this is not English ...
Still, this is an interesting question that cannot be answered entirely, as Maltz may tell us other things about that. What about {mapuS} or {malaw'}? Isn't that "we are many"?
Based on this phrase {Doq SuvwI'pu'; DoqwI'pu' vIlegh.} the following should be acceptable too: {law' SuvwI'pu'; law'wI'pu' vIlegh.}
Okay, now I'm eating my own statement... :-/
-- Lieven L. Litaer aka the "Klingon Teacher from Germany" http://www.klingonisch.de http://www.klingonwiki.net/En/Many _______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org