[208] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: "HablI' ? labbeH"
dcctdw@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (dcctdw@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Sun Feb 16 19:20:38 1992
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
Reply-To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
From: krankor@IMA.ISC.COM (Captain Krankor)
To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
Date: Wed, 12 Feb 92 17:50:45 -0500
Ok, I rented ST:III and think I solved the mystery of this line.
First, some background. Whereas Okrand in general worked with the actors
on the language, he did not work with Valkris. As a result, it is safe
to assume her pronounciation is not always 100%. In fact, certain language
things apparently evolved *because* of her screwups. I'm fairly sure I
remember Okrand saying this is how we got HISlaH in addition to HIja' (I
*know* he said it was from *someone* screwing it up, though I'll be damned
if I can figure out how someone would mangle it that badly; they're not
even close). And I'd be willing to bet that jaw for "lord" was actually
her mispronounced "joH" (in particular, pronouncing the H as a (silent)
English h, a common mistake). Which leads me to my conclusion about the
line in question:
I believe that what she is saying is: HablI' Su' labbeH
This would in fact be two sentences; adding English punctuation we get:
HablI' Su'. labbeH. "Transmitter ready. Prepared to transmit."
This despite the fact that when she says it, she groups it (by where she
does and doesn't pause): [HablI'][Su' labbeH]. I believe the reason for
this pause-in-the-wrong-place is simply that, not having worked with Okrand,
she didn't really know what she was saying.
I also speculate that the reason that we have both Su' and SuH for 'ready'
is that again, she mangled it with the trailing-English-h problem; I'll
bet the original script said SuH.
The other noteworthy thing is we actually indirectly get a new grammar rule
from this script, though it is not explicitly stated anywhere in the
dictionary. It appears that one can, in some cases, put a noun before an
exclamation, in which case it acts as, essentially, the object of the noun.
This is not just from this reconstructed example, there were other less
disputable examples in the film. The one I clearly remember was:
jabbI'ID pItlh "Transmission completed"
I think it safe to presume that such a construction is of a clipped
variety; you couldn't translate it as "The transmission is completed" --
such a full, complete sentence would want to use a real verb, such
as: rIn jabbI'ID.
Another example of actor-screwup, by the way: When the bird of prey first
decloaks, it is after we hear the captain give an order in tlhIngan Hol,
with the subtitle "Deactivate cloak" or some such. What he says sounds
very much like: "SopwI' yIchuHa'"; in fact, I think I've seen it transcribed
here as just that. Slight problem: "SopwI' yIchuHa'" means "Deactivate
the eater". 'cloaking device' is So'wI', not SopwI'.
Finally, some unrelated tidbits gleaned from reviewing this film:
At one point, the captain gives an order to head for the "Federation
Neutral Zone". Did anybody notice what the word for neutral zone is?
It is, in fact, neHmaH, fascinating because, taken literally, it means,
essentially, "we want it" {{:-)
And something totally unrelated to tlhIngan Hol, but something I found
interesting: There's a scene early in the film where the folx
on the
Enterprise bridge are discovering that someone has broken into Spock's
old quarters. There's a close-up of a technical display, indicating the
security breach, which shows a diagram of the Enterprise.
But the diagram is a screw-up {{:-) It clearly depicts an old Constitution
class ship, the kind from the old tv series, with the straight vertical
pylons to the necelles, instead of the fancy, movie swept-back kind {{:-).
The necelles definately look like the cylindrical old kind instead of
the more rectangular 'modern' ones {{:-)
--Krankor
