Am 01.09.2018 um 11:53 schrieb Daniel Dadap:
I think my question was whether “DI'raq motlh” implies that an ordinary sheep is a ewe. The original line “that’s not a sheep; that’s a ram” seems to make this sort of implication. Perhaps in a way an ordinary sheep is a ewe, since I imagine that most shepherds keep far more ewes than rams.
That is indeed an interesting question, but not about Klingon, it's more a general one that also applies to any language, being French, English or German. The prince was asking for a sheep. The used word "sheep" (french "mouton") does not imply any gender. When the pilot drew one with horns, the prince said "no, that's a ram" - this IS a specific gender, male. It's true that this seems to imply that he was expecting a female sheep when he asked for a sheep. I think that the ambiguity of sheep being used for a female sheep works pretty well in Klingon in the first place, as it's using a general term. --- Conveying this to a different idea, it's like he was asking for a "Human". When someone drew a male human, he replied that he was expecting a female. - Why he did that? I don't know.
By analogy, would DI'raq be' be a ewe?
No, the ewe is a {DI'raq be'}.
How is that different from what I asked?
I don't know. I think I over-read the word {be'} while answering. HIvqa' veqlargh! :-) -- Lieven L. Litaer aka the "Klingon Teacher from Germany" http://www.klingonisch.de http://www.klingonwiki.net/En/ReplacementProverb