tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri May 05 05:42:49 1995
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Re: Question
- From: "Mark J. Reed" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Question
- Date: Fri, 5 May 95 08:46:10 EDT
- In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 5 May 1995 07:39:57 -0400. <[email protected]>
[email protected] writes:
\ I am seeking guidance on how to say something in tlhIngan-Hol.
\
\ Assume I have a woman named Delora that I wish to take as mine. If I were
\ talking to another male, ("I take Delora as my woman." or "I am taking Delora
\ as my woman." or perhaps even "I am taking the woman, Delora, as my wife.")
\ would I say:
\
\ delora vItlhappu' jIH
\ or
\ delora qatlhappu' jIH
Neither of these quite expresses the concept you wish to convey.
The first one comes out as
*I* have taken Delora!
which is fine, except that it's not what you said you wanted to express. :)
The second translates as
*I* have taken you Delora!
which is the same save that you're addressing Delora directly, and the issue of
appositives in Klingon is a subject of debate.
In either case, the {-pu'} indicates that the action is complete.
It therefore can't be "I take" or "I am taking"; it can only be "I have taken",
or "I had taken" or "I will have taken" if the surrouding context indicates
past or future time. Drop the {-pu'} to get the sense "I take" or "I am
taking". [If you really *do* want to say "I have taken" in this context,
though, {-ta'} is probably better than {-pu'}, as it indicates that you set out
to accomplish the taking, and by gosh you did it.] Also, it is conventional
to mark names and such, so you don't have someone going through their dictionary
trying to figure out what "Delora'" means. :) So:
<Delora> vItlhap. I take Delora.
<Delora> vItlhapta'! I have taken Delora!
with "jIH" appended to either sentence if you want to emphasize the fact
that you, and only you, are doing the taking.
The idea "as my woman/wife" is missing in the above translations, and the phrase
"take as my X" probably doesn't translate directly. You could say something
like this:
be'wI' moj <Delora> 'e' vIqaSmoH "I make Delora my woman"
be'nalwI' moj <Delora> 'e' vIqaSmoH "I make Delora my wife"
Less loosely translated, that's "I cause Delora to become my wife"; literally,
it's "I cause it to happen that Delora becomes my wife."
-marqoS
--
Mark J. Reed
Email: [email protected] - Voice: +1 404 315 6296 x158 - Fax: +1 404 315 0293
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