[788] in tlhIngan-Hol
tape
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Sat May 8 03:30:56 1993
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
Reply-To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
From: erich@bush.cs.tamu.edu (Erich Schneider)
To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
Date: Sat, 8 May 93 01:30:22 CDT
In-Reply-To: A.APPLEYARD@fs1.mt.umist.ac.uk's message of 7 May 93 13:07:45 GMT
>Neither have I, nor many others. It would be useful if someone could post
>here and/or send to HolQeD a description of all the vocabulary and grammar and
>usage points which are on the tape but not in TKD.
I just finished transcribing the Klingon dialogue from the tape, so
here is the new stuff:
When listing pairs of antonymous adjectives, Okrand gives the
following:
'eq early
paS late
Sum near
qutlh cheap
wagh expensive
Michael Dorn (as Worf (which should be "worv"? Someone should make
sure the Klingon characters have names commensurable with the
phonology!)) explicitly states at one point that Qo'noS is the
homeworld of the Klingon Empire.
As far as telling time, it's said that Klingons use 24-hour days "like
most civilized planets". (Hmph. I guess that really does make Bajor/DS9 a
backwater, what with their 26-hour days. {{:) To refer to a time on
the hour, say "<number> vatlh rep" "<number> hundred hour".
The examples given are:
pagh rep - midnight
vagh rep - five o'clock in the morning
jav vatlh rep - six o'clock in the morning
wa' maH Hut vatlh rep - seven o'clock in the evening (1900 hrs.)
Okrand also mistaken gives "noon" as "cha' maH wa' vatlh rep" which is
clearly "twenty-one hundred hours"; it should be "wa' maH cha' vatlh
rep" "twelve hundred hours".
I assume that one could transfer over the modern military time
metaphor and use constructions like "wa' maH cha' vatlh wej maH rep"
to be "1230 hours", "12:30 PM".
When talking about renting a room, the word "qong" is used for "bed",
a new word. The word "tep", "cargo", is used to refer to "luggage".
Other interesting translations are:
"pa'vo' pagh leghlu'" "One sees nothing from the room" as
"The room has no view."
"vagh rep bImejnIS" "You must leave at 0500" as
"checkout time is five o'clock"
This last seems to imply time references are used like adverbs; simply
put one at the beginning of the sentence (or wherever appropriate).
"Bon appetit, Terran" is translated as "peSop tera'ngan" "Eat,
Terran!" (with the wrong imperative prefix; I'll get to that.)
"nov DorwI'", "alien escort", is used to refer to Klingons who will
accompany non-Klingons to Klingon bars (they being rough places).
When talking about a bar visit, "HIq" "liquor" is used for the
following:
"HIq qIj" "black ale"
"reguluS 'Iw HIq" "Regulan bloodwine"
"romuluS HIq" "Romulan ale"
(Perhaps one could refer to beer as "tIr HIq", "grain liquor",
althought that might be used to refer to many distilled grain
beverages. But we do know that food concepts don't translate well.)
"Klingon warriors are butting heads" is translated "qIp'egh
nachDu'chaj tlhIngan SuvwI'pu'". Either this is a previously unknown
instrumental construction for "Klingon warriors are hitting themselves
with their heads" or is a mistaken construction for "Klingon warriors'
heads hit themselves." (Perhaps something like "nachDu'chajDaq qIpchuq
tlhIngan SuvwI'pu'", "Klingon warriors are hitting each other in their
heads" would be better, or "nachDu'chajmo'" using Qanqor's recent
suggestion of using "-mo'" as an instrumental suffix, which I like a
lot.)
The Klingon bartender's "last call" is "'eb Qav!", "last opportunity!"
"Dargh wIb", "sour tea" refers to a universal Klingon hangover and
indigestion cure.
"I didn't do it" is translated as "bIta'pu'be'", "I didn't accomplish it"
I noticed a few times through the tape that there are pronounciation
and grammatical errors. The first are of the type anyone would make -
inserting extra glottal stops after verb prefixes, pronouncing "q" as
"Q" or vice-versa. (Although at one point Okrand pronounces
"tera'ngan" as "tera'nang".) The second type are pretty rare;
in at least two places the plural "you-no object imperative"
prefix is used when the singular is called for (e.g. when a Klingon
food server says "peSop, tera'ngan", "Eat, Terran!" to a single
Terran; it should be "yISop, tera'ngan"), the "butting heads" example,
and the mistranslation of "noon".
lIQaHpu' jabbI'IDvam 'e' jItul.
-QumpIn 'avrIn
