On Fri, Sep 07, 2018 at 08:20:13PM -0400, SuStel wrote:
English /he/ and /she/ (etc.) indicate sex or (more recently) gender identity, something that Klingon doesn't distinguish at all in its pronouns. In English a noun typically graduates from an /it/ to a /he/ or /she/ when it obtains a male/female gender that someone cares to mention. This doesn't happen in Klingon. Hence the question, when does a Klingon noun graduate from an *'oH* to a *ghaH?* It's not when the noun gains a gender. So when is it?
I personally think that it is the same distinction as bIH / chaH (although as a beginner my opinion shouldn't count for too much), but the question does get me thinking. In English we sometimes refer to an animal as an it, and sometimes as a he or she. Pets are almost always referred to as he / she, while animals that we aren't attached to as much are more likely to be referred to as it. I wonder if something similar goes on in Klingon, not with animals, but with computers that have a natural language interface. Would a Klingon who used such a computer regularly start to unconsciously refer to the computer as a ghaH? James