[88955] in tlhIngan-Hol
RE: "nargh tar DatlhISmeH 'eb"
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Steven Boozer)
Tue Jul 12 13:08:24 2011
From: Steven Boozer <sboozer@uchicago.edu>
To: "tlhingan-hol@kli.org" <tlhingan-hol@kli.org>
Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2011 11:59:00 -0500
In-Reply-To: <1310487562.25534.YahooMailClassic@web24007.mail.ird.yahoo.com>
Errors-to: tlhingan-hol-bounce@kli.org
Reply-to: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Lucifuge Rofocale
> I stumbled upon this sentence:-
> nargh tar DatlhISmeH 'eb - "It is too late for you to spit out the poison."
You really need the perfective suffix here to indicate that the opportunity has indeed escaped {narghpu'}:
narghpu' tar DatlhISmeH 'eb.
> Two things.
> One, I got a chill up my spine at the nargh ...-meH 'eb "too late" construction which
> is new to me. How and where did this come about, and can someone give me an
> attribution?
Okrand introduced it on the st.klingon group back in January 1998. He was asked how to translate "I was too late to visit you" and came up with three variants:
jIpaSqu'mo' narghpu' qaSuchmeH 'eb
"Because I'm very late, the opportunity to visit you has escaped."
qaSuch vIneH 'ach narghpu' 'eb. jIpaSqu'
"I want to visit you, but the opportunity has escaped. I am very late."
qaSuchlaHbe'. jIpaSqu' vaj narghpu' 'eb
"I cannot visit you. I am very late, thus the opportunity has escaped."
FYI there's also an idiom from KGT: {pel'aQDaj ghorpa'} "before it breaks its shell" meaning "before it's too late" or "while there's still time". Okrand provided an example sentence:
pel'aQDaj ghorpa' qama' yIHoH
Before it breaks its shell, kill the prisoner!
(i.e. "Kill the prisoner now, while you've got a chance") KGT
--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons
