[351] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: Meta-discussions in Klingon!
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Tue May 26 17:33:23 1992
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
Reply-To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
From: jrk@information-systems.east-anglia.ac.uk (Richard Kennaway)
To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
Date: Tue, 26 May 1992 21:56:58 +0000
Ken_Beesley.PARC@com.xerox gave a morphological analysis of my Klingon
which I won't repeat here, but it agreed with what I intended the words
to be.
mosquito@EDU.MIT.Athena (Kevin Iga) analyses my Klingon, in Klingon! I
won't try to analyse his analysis in Klingon as well or I'll be here all
night...
RK> jach rIq mIlr:
KI> jach \> scream, cry out, shout, yell (v) \\
I actually wanted a word for "snarl", but "shout" was the closest I could
get. :-)
KI> nuq 'oH mu'tlheghvam'e'? nuq 'oH rIq'e'? mIlr?
"rIq mIlr" is a transliteration of Rick Miller, the person whose message I
was responding to. Thus I began (or wanted to): "Rick Miller snarls:",
followed by quoting Rick Miller's message to the effect that he hadn't
seen a single Klingon sentence during the last planetary rotation.
However, object-first order means that "jach rIq mIlr" should go after the
quote rather than before. Would it be better to have begun: "'oH jach rIq
mIlr:"?
RK> He chenmoH yItwI''e'.
KI> He \> course, route (n) \\
KI> chen \> build up, take form (v) \\
KI> yIt \> walk (v) \\
KI> tera'nganDaq "Concerning the walker, he takes the form of a route" 'oH
KI> mu'thleghvam'e'. Dochvetlh Dajatlh DaneH'a'? teHchugh vIyajbe'.
(Translation: "In Terran this sentence means 'Concerning the walker, he
takes the form of a route'. Is that what you meant to say? If that's
what you meant, I don't understand it.")
(Comment: I don't understand the grammar of the first sentence. It goes:
"Terran-locative 'Concerning etc.' it sentence-this-topic". There doesn't
seem to be a verb there.)
"-moH" Daleghta'be'. "chenmoH" means "to cause something to take form".
So my utterance means "It is a walker that causes a route to take form."
In hindsight, it would be better with the plural, "walkers". One might
also use "leng", "travel". Hence:
He chenmoH lengwImey''e'.
It is travellers who cause a route to take form.
Or as the Tao Te Ching puts it, "A path is made by walking on it".
I then continued:
RK> 'e' yIDa!
"Previous-statement imperative-you-behave-as-it."
"Go, and do thou likewise!"
Thus I provided RM with the Klingon sentences he desired, and suggested
that if he wants to see more, he should write some himself.
KI> ^ "Dochvetlh" vIlo'ta', 'ach "Dochvetlh" mughlaHlu'be' "this thing".
KI> tlhIngan QaQ 'oH'a' "Dochvetlh"'e'?
(Translation: "I used 'Dochvetlh', but 'Dochvetlh' cannot translate 'this
thing'. Is 'Dochvetlh' good Klingon?")
You could instead use "'e'" to refer to your previous utterance, and say:
teH 'e' DaHech'a'
"is-true previous-statement you-intend-it-query?"
"Do you intend the previous statement (i.e. the claim about what my
original statement meant) to be true?"
jIjatlhta'.
(Free translation: "Bye.")
--
Richard Kennaway SYS, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, U.K.
Internet: jrk@sys.uea.ac.uk uucp: ...mcsun!ukc!uea-sys!jrk
