[Tlhingan-hol] rup

[Fatairae]

All of which is a fascinating insight into the culture that spawned the culture.  Is the gender a relic of ancient usage? Or an explicit statement of subjective opinion by the speaker?
  To use a couple Terran languages as references (since what are our brains, but giant categorizing machines):
  In English (through old English), we have relics of the gender system, though only recognizable as such in plurals (wolf/wolves vs mouse/mice).  We don't think of these as "categories" of words.  A similar example (in many of the Indo-European languages) is the disjoint between the feminine gender, and what is actually female. If I remember correctly, the old English "wif" (wife) is masculine.  Tamilian has a completely different system (similar to Klingon actually), where by all sentient things get one gender, and everything else goes in the other.

  So, the question becomes one of philosophy or grammar?  Is it a hardcoded system, wherein it sounds as wrong as "mouses", or is it an active "philosophical" choice on the part of the speaker to make a statement about the subject?  To say "I acknowledge speaking", on the part of the target; and thus its import is specific to the subjective opinion of the speaker?

None of which is solved by "canon", but fun to hash out the concepts from what we have anyway hehe.


On Nov 12, 2015, at 10:50, Will Martin <lojmitti7wi7nuv at gmail.com> wrote:

When Okrand tells us that Klingon gender is determined by the ability to use language, I don’t think this is code words for “has a soul”. I take him at his word. As a class of nouns, is this an example of a being capable of using language? If someone speaks of {targhpu’wIj}, I probably would not be able to stop myself from responding, {toH, pIj boja'chuq’a' targhmeylIj SoH je? boja’chuqtaHvIS nuq bop jatlhtaHghachraj?}