On 7/4/2019 7:11 AM, Rhona Fenwick wrote:
ghItlhpu' SuStel, jatlh:
_Hu'rIn lu'uchmeH ghopDu'chaj lo' /orcs./
jIHvaD loQ jum; qatlh DIvI' Hol pab pol /orcs/? qatlh /orc/pu' Dajun? (...'ach /yrch/ Dalo'nISbe'ba' :) )
ghot pong 'oHmo' _Hu'rIn'e' 'ach Segh 'oHmo' /orc/'e'. At some point you have to decide what exactly a proper noun is. The word /human/ is, for example, a common noun, but the word /Klingon/ is a proper noun. Sometimes people writing about Star Trek try to correct this by capitalizing /Human/ as well. Tolkien's capitalization for elves, orcs, dwarves, and so on changes depending on which book you're looking at. He never capitalizes /troll,/ however. His choice to treat some "species" as proper nouns in some books is a personal convention, and it need not be followed at all times. There's an old role-playing game called /Star Frontiers/ in which the various intelligent race-names are all capitalized, and so they capitalize /Human/ as well. I always take it the other way, figuring that if /human/ is a common noun to humans, then /yazirian/ is a common noun to yazirians, /dralasite/ is a common noun to dralasites, and /vrusk/ is a common noun to /vrusk./ I adopt a narrower definition of what constitutes a proper noun. So I made a choice: /orc/ is a common noun, not a proper noun, just as I'll treat *tlhIngan, romuluSngan,* and *tera'ngan* as common nouns. It's just a personal convention. Given that we're talking about personal conventions to mark proper nouns, I figure I'm entitled. :) -- SuStel http://trimboli.name