[226] in tlhIngan-Hol
From the Grammarian's Desk
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Wed Mar 4 03:45:11 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, 4 Mar 92 02:35:30 -0500
Well, happily my call for discussion has gotten some good tlhIngan
Hol happening here on the list. I would like to take a moment to
point out some errors that are being made. What follows are
selected clips from some of the recent mail, with no attempt
whatsoever made to keep track of who wrote what. In some cases I
have the English translation intended by the author, which I have
put in quotes.
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mochpu' lob 'e' lunaD tlhInganpu', toH mochpu' lobQo' 'e' mIghlaw' chaHvaD.
"Klingons approve of obeying superiors, so refusing to obey superiors would
seem evil to them."
A couple problems here. Let's start with the first clause. It's
second part, "'e' lunaD tlhInganpu'", gives us the "Klingons approve
of that", the 'that' in this case being the first part, "mochpu'
lob", "He/She/It/They obey superiors". *Who* obeys superiors? We
have a problem with the subject here; since the subject is meant to
be indefinate, we should therefore have the indefinate subject
suffix. Thus, the first clause should really be:
mochpu' loblu' 'e' lunaD tlhInganpu'
In the second clause, there's three problems. First, we have the
same indefinate subject problem on lobQo'-- should be loblu'Qo'.
Next, toH is not really the right choice for "so". toH is an
exclamation; what's called for in this case is "vaj". Finally, that
chaHvaD just can't be there at the end of the sentence, no way. Any
nouns other than the object go *before* the object and verb,
basically at the head of the sentence. The object in this case is 'e',
so we get:
mochpu' loblu' 'e' lunaD tlhInganpu' vaj mochpu' loblu'Qo' chaHvaD 'e' mIghlaw'
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leSHey jIghitlhtaH DochvamDaq.
"Days-from-now-or-something, I'll continue to write about this.
(the last was my best for an indefinite "later")."
Same problem as above: that DochvamDaq can't be at the end of the
sentence. So:
leSHey DochvamDaq jIghItlhtaH.
I probably would have just used "tugh" instead of leSHey -- not as
precise in meaning, but fairly close and far less confusing. Also,
one could probably have quite a healthy argument about whether -Daq
or -vaD is more appropriate on Dochvam.
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yu'ghachvam jangghach mungeDlaw'! tlhInganpu'vaD mIghlaw' quvHa'.
"The answer to this question seems easy to me! Dishonour seems evil to
Klingons."
Here we seem to have some problems with the new -ghach verb suffix.
In fact, it appears to be being used exactly backwardsly. (Refer to
page 176 for the description of -ghach). The rule is that simple
verbs can usually become nouns directly, but any complex verb, i.e.
one with suffix(es) needs -ghach to turn into a noun. But in our
sentence here, we have just the opposite: simple verbs are taking
-ghach, and complex ones aren't. So let's start by applying the
rule properly:
yu'vam jang mungeDlaw'! tlhInganpu'vaD mIghlaw' quvHa'ghach.
It is not clear what happens when you apply -ghach to a simple verb;
my take on it is that it is not strictly necessary if the meaning is
clear, but not out-and-out-wrong. However, it would seem
particularly redundant on a word that already is taking noun
suffixes, this *clearly* marking its use as a noun already. In
other words, jangghach isn't so bad, but yu'ghachvam seems
especially needless.
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'ach quvHa' nuq? wuqlu'chu'ta''a' qechvam?
"But what is dishonour? Has this idea been well-defined?"
"'ach quvHa' nuq?" means "What dishonours?". Well, that's ok, but
to get what's in the intended English, I think we mean quvHa' as a
noun, which is to say we're back to quvHa'ghach. But now we need a
verb, specifically we want our trusty old "to be" construction
(section 6.3, page 67). Thus:
'ach nuq 'oH quvHa'ghach'e' --or-- 'ach quvHa'ghach'e' 'oH nuq'e'
As for the last sentence, we have a problem in that the verb wuq is
taking the indefinate subject suffix, but then is being given an
actual subject, qechvam. In fact, qechvam wants to be the *object*,
not the subject. So we get:
'ach nuq 'oH quvHa'ghach'e'? qechvam wuqlu'chu'ta''a'?
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tlhIngan DatIch yIneHchugh, "lobbogh toy'wI'" Dapong.
The mistake here is pretty obvious: should be "DaneHchugh", not
"yI-". It's hard to imagine what that would mean as is {{:-)
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tlhInganpu'vad batlh lo'laH, 'ach nIteb batlh ghajlaH HoSwI'
Two problems here. In the first clause, the desired meaning was
"Klingons value honor"; lacking a verb for "to value", this was
reworked into "Honor is valuable to Klingons." Ok, but that means
that batlh needs to be the subject, not the object. Hence:
tlhInganpu'vaD lo'laH batlh,
In the second clause, nIteb is being used incorrectly. The desired
meaning is "but only the strong can have honor." nIteb doesn't mean
"only" in this way, it really means "solo, all by oneself". There
is already a construction for this kind of only, involving the
rather unusual adverb "neH" (page 57). Thus:
tlhInganpu'vaD lo'laH batlh, 'ach batlh ghajlaH HoSwI' neH
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A final plea:
Some of these errors are understandable, as people are working to
learn the language, but in a few cases I got the sense that the
writer knew better, and was just begin sloppy. I *IMPLORE* you not
to be sloppy when you make tlhIngan Hol postings. Remember that
beginners are having a tough enough time understanding *proper*
Klingon without having to cope with faulty Klingon {{;-). Please
take the extra time to double check your work before you post.
--Captain Krankor, Grammarian
