[2449] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: A translation question
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Tue Jan 4 14:13:57 1994
Reply-To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@klingon.East.Sun.COM>
From: Will Martin <whm2m@uva.pcmail.virginia.edu>
To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@klingon.East.Sun.COM>
Date: Tue, 4 Jan 94 14:06:32 EST
On Jan 3, 10:02pm, Nick NICHOLAS wrote:
> Subject: Re: A translation question
...
> ={QaQ tlhIngan ghaHghach vay'} = "Someone/anyone's being a Klingon is
> =good."
>
> Unfortunately, we have no way of incorporating both subject and object
> into verbal nouns; even if we did, you can bet that both would precede
> the verbal noun, which is the head of the construction, and thus goes to
> the end: tlhIngan vay' ghaHghach. Much better, of course, is simply
> tlhIngan ghaHlu'ghach
> Nick Nicholas, Breather
I am trying greatly to grok this; to praise and cherish it and so grok
it in its wholeness. Still, the first of the newest suggestions reads to me:
"The Klingon's someone's being..." or "the being of someone of the
Klingon..." It's an extention of the N-N construction; a N-N-N construction.
I can push myself to accept the latter of those two English
translations, though I do not like it. I agree that the second offering
{tlhIngan ghaHlu'ghach} is better. It is less easily interpreted as "being"
as in "creature". Still, it is not the sort of thing I'd say in a crowded
Klingon bar. It might attract undesirable attention.
-- charghwI'
