[929] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: CastleTower's recent post (or: Well, I asked for it... :) )
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Wed May 26 21:50:43 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: Captain Krankor <krankor@codex.prds.cdx.mot.com>
To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
Date: Wed, 26 May 93 18:23:09 -0400
>>If at first you don't succeed...
>>
>>nuQwI' tlhInganpu' jIrI'!
>Having two older brothers myself, I can understand the connection between "one
>who annoys" and "brother", but I don't know if anyone else can. :) If you mean
t
>something else there, I did not catch it. Also, the word order should (I
>think) be reversed for "Klingon brothers" (I have no idea which rule this
>would be, but I can remember "tlhIngan Hol", and this is the same kind of
>construction). The prefix on "rI'" is not correct. There is an object
>("tlhIngan loDnI'pu'"), so it needs vI-, not jI-. So, I get:
>thlIngan loDnI'pu' vIrI'!
It actually *could* be jI-, if the first part was an address, not an
object (5.6, p58). But I'm not sure if that's what he meant.
Although in that case, one could argue that in fact it would be
better as Sa-.
>>Soy'ghach ghItlhtaH jIpay.
>Again, the confusion on the prefix. what I actually got here when I translate
d
>before looking at what was provided was "I regret to be writing clumsiness" (
-
>ghach being on the verb "clumsy"). Other than that, this line is fine:
>ghItlhtaHghach Soy' vIpay.
If what was meant was "I regret to be writing clumsiness", which would also be
my best guess, I'd say it would be closer to the original intent to do it as:
Soy'ghach vIthItlhtaH 'e' vIpay.
>>chaq wa'DIchDaq napghach mu'tlhegmey.
>Uh, first, I have *no* idea if "wa'DIchDaq" is "legal" or not. I imagine that
,
>technically, it is not, as "wa'DIch" is a number, not a noun. I imagine you
>could just drop the -Daq...? Again, the verb doesn't need -ghach if it is
>being used as an adjective. It needs only to follow the noun it modifies. Th
e
>other thing is there is no verb in this sentence. Based on the terran
>translation provided, I gathered the intent was "Perhaps I write simple
>sentences at first":
>chaq wa'DIch mu'thleghmey nap vIghItlh.
True, there is no verb in the sentence, but there is no verb in his
English translation. It's just a sentence fragment, but I suppose
one can do this in Klingon as much as in English. There certainly
are enough examples of people saying things like "chuyDaH!" when
what they probably mean is "chuyDaH yIchu'!". Actually, this comes
up in the section on Clipped Klingon. In general it's probably
better to use complete sentences, just because they are more easily
understood (I admit that I stumbled on translating this a bit at
first too), but I don't know that it's out-and-out wrong.
>>qeSlIjvaD 'ej Sun vIQamrup Hev!
>I am not sure if you can have a verb follow another with the meaning "to
><verb>. In fact, the more I think about it, you cannot. (it would actually g
o
>before the main verb as well). je (not 'ej, that is for sentencese) comes
>after the 2 nouns. An 'e' would be needed in there, too... and another -vaD,
>and the jI- should be vI- in either case:
>qeSlIjvaD SunvaD je vIHev 'e' jIQamrup!
The same goes for Qam-- it would have to be vIQamrup.
>Personally, I would use the purpose clause here, -meH:
>qeSliJ Sun je vIHevmeH jIQamrup!
I agree, the -meH version is much better. I'd add that it probably
wants to be SunlIj. In English you can say "Your advice and
discipline" and the "your" manages to apply to both, but it's not so
clear you can do that in Klingon.
>Okay, let's hear it... how many errors did I catch that were not really there,
>and how many were there that I didn't catch?
I'd say you did a fine job. batlh to trI'Qal and Castletower!
--Krankor
