[2484] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: A translation question
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Sat Jan 8 11:35:27 1994
Reply-To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@klingon.East.Sun.COM>
From: nsn@vis.mu.OZ.AU (Nick NICHOLAS)
To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@klingon.East.Sun.COM>
Date: Sun, 9 Jan 94 3:33:16 EDT
In-Reply-To: <199401041447.JAA16509@startide.ctr.columbia.edu>; from "Mark E. S
houlson" at Jan 4, 94 9:47 am
batlh choja', Mark E. Shoulson quv:
=>If it is, then it's no longer an exclamation, it's an adverb. While majghoS
=>has been used for "welcome", I think this is a liberty too great.
="majghoS" for "welcome"? Eww. I don't see any support for this (leaving
=aside my surprise that a Klingon would bother with something so solly as
="welcome").
It was used at the last Klingon Camp, and made it into the press. Besides,
whatever Klingons would bother with (if they existed, he smirked), humans
are the ones using the language. But we've been through that one before.
=> If it was a phrase in my Shakespeare, I'd treat
=>it as:
=>ghahlu' tlhIngan'e'; QaQ ghu'vam
=>(one is a Klingon; this situation is good).
=Erg, I don't much like this, for obscure reasons that I have trouble
=backing up. Mostly, I don't like the sound of "?ghaHlu'". I know it's not
=properly a passive, but it really should share a lot of passive properties,
=and using it this way doesn't seem to work well. I know that "ghaH" is
=syntactically transitive, (incidentally, it should be "tlhIngan ghaHlu'" if
=anything)... it just doesn't shound right to me yet.
Well, fair enough; it sounds just fine to me, but then, I don't think of
-lu' as a passive (mainly because it leaves the object exactly where it is),
but as a "one does" form. Which reminds me of an episode in a Terry
Pratchett book I just read, but I'm a Klingonist, I'm not meant to be
reading Pratchett ;) It *would* be tlhIngan ghahlu', wouldn't it... which
sets up a nasty conflict with the ghaH tlhIngan'e' form.
=Similarly, I don't much like "?ghaHghach". Sounds like you're trying
=awfully hard to make an infinitive for "to be" (or being), and Klingon has
=no infinitives.
Yeah, I suppose if ghaHghach meant anything, it'd be more like _Dasein_ or
something ponderous and philosophical, than any colloquial infinitive or
gerund.
=tlhIngan SoHchugh vaj maj
=tlhIngan jIH, vaj maj
=and so on. Note the nice thing about this is that I get to use "maj" and
=not "QaQ", since the former is an even more "approving" (zabna, for
=lojbanists) word.
Yes. In fact, that latter one (not necessarily grammatical, since you're...
um, you know. vaj maj no verb.) is extraordinarily cute --- almost .sig
material. I am Klingon. Therefore, cool! I think trI'Qal's friend need
search no more.
== == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == ==
Nick Nicholas, Breather {le'o ko na rivbi fi'inai palci je tolvri danlu}
nsn@krang.vis.mu.oz.au -- Miguel Cervantes tr. Jorge LLambias
