[354] in tlhIngan-Hol
Meta-discussions in Klingon!
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Wed May 27 17:58:20 1992
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
Reply-To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
From: Mark E. Shoulson <shoulson@ctr.columbia.edu>
To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
Date: Wed, 27 May 92 15:11:31 -0400
In-Reply-To: Richard Kennaway's message of Tue, 26 May 1992 21:56:58 +0000 <252
>Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
>From: jrk@information-systems.east-anglia.ac.uk (Richard Kennaway)
>"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.
Yeah, that's why I got confused about who wrote what, IO was paying more
attention to the comment on your letter and lost track of >'s.
>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:"?
Hmmm. Then you'd have me wondering what the "'oH" referred to. Maybe
"Dochvam", "this", to indicate somehow that it's on its way? Easy to
overuse "Doch"...
>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.)
Well, "'oH" can be used as a copula, as explained in Sect. 6.3. Since they
can take verbal suffixes, they really act as verbs. So he's saying
"In-Terran, this-sentence is 'Concerning...'". The topic marker is part of
this construction (I think I blew that in my response).
>"-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 liked the first one better. 'Sides, "lengwI'mey" is a grammatical term,
and while a Klingon wouldn't get confused with it, we probably would get
tangled up, given how much we talk about the language, rather than in 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.
Aha! Then I was right. That's how I interpreted your use of the phrase.
Hee. I actually really got the phrase right off (modulo flipping through
dictionary). It was very well-done.
>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?")
Why can't it? It may not be rught for this case, but "Dochvetlh" is
certainly grammatical and sensible in many situations.
>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?"
I'm not sure you can use "'e'" as the subject; the book only mentions it as
an object pronoun. And if you could, you'd need another "'e'" for the
subject of "DaHech", thus yielding "teH 'e' 'e' DaHech'a'". It doesn't
sound right to me, sorry.
>jIjatlhta'.
>(Free translation: "Bye.")
Heh. Sort of "over and out". Makes sense. Hey, this is a good parting
greeting, though Okrand prescribed just walking out. Hmmm. More like "I
have spoken".
~mark
