tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Aug 21 22:30:55 1996

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Re: KLBC: Sentence for Martial Arts Project.


I hope you read my previous KLBC response... same comments from the
beginning of that letter aplly here, too. :)


At 12:20 PM 8/21/96 -0700, Mike Rowe wrote:
>I am writting a Klingon version to my Student Handbook.  I thought it would be 
>fun to give at conventions and batleH seminars.  I felt it was important to 
>learn the language.  here goes.


Um... this could get tricky.  I generally don't recommend that you start by
translating something somone else wrote, because there is no guarantee that
what they gave you is a beginner-level text *for translation*.  Usually.
Fortunately, this is a Handbook, and as long as you remember you can
re-phrase things a bit if you have troubles, then it isn't as bad as if you
were doing a song or poem...


>ghom
>Assemble


I'm not sure if your English means "to assemble" or a
verb-turned-noun-to-make-a-title, i.e., they just call it "Assemble" instead
of "assembly" or if they are using the imperative, or whatever.  In this
particular case, it really doesn't matter, because the verb <ghom> is also a
noun meaning the same thing, so this could be a good translation for any of
the above.


>ghom ghojwI'pu' ra'DI' ghojmoHwI' ghom  ghojwI'pu' poS <to> nIH, moch <to> 
>QIvwI'
>When the instructor commands the students to assemble the students assemble
>left to right, Senior to Junior.


Well, if you have read the KD thoroughly, you have heard of "Clipped
Klingon", right?

Well, this is "Clipped English"  {{:)  (Yes, that's a joke {{:) )

I say that, because there are a lot of words tha *could* be in the original
sentence, but are not, which would make the meaning a lot clearer, but we
don't really require.  When you start to have troubles translating a phrase
(you mentioned later you had trouble translateing "right to left"), re-cast
it... don't alter the meaning... just move words around a bit to make it
clearer.  I would re-word this sentence this way:  "When the instructor
commands teh students for the purpose that they assemble, the students
assemble from left to right, from Senior to Junior."

Please note that I did not change the *meaning* of the sentence... just put
in a few more owrds for clarity.

I have to say, you made an EXCELLENT attempt at translating this, and the
basic parts of sentence (that were not "clipped" in English), you have
*perfect*:  <ghojwI'pu' ra'DI' ghojmoHwI' ghom  ghojwI'pu'> ("When the
instructor commands the students, the students gather") is absolutely
correct.  The only thing I could want is a little punctuation to show where
the subordinate clause ends, and teh independent one begins... but that is
certainly not *required*.  In fact, a comman error among beginners is the
misuse of -DI' ("as soon as"/"when").  This is a very good example of when
and how it SHOULD be used!

Unfortunatley, you didn't do quite so well with the parts that were cliped..
but you made a very nice start.  Let's start with "for thepurpose that they
assemble".  In your Handbook, it just says "to assemble".  Much like "for"
in a previous post "to" has many meanings.  Fortunately, you realized that
it was with an infinative (spelling?  Sorry if it's wrong :/) verb.  We seem
to use infinitives often in English to mean "for the purpose of/that/to"...
but we cannot (to my knowledge) do this in Klingon.

*** DEBATE ALERT ***
How to handl infinative in Klingon may still be a well-debated topic.  Long
ago, there was some disscussion as to whetheror not you could use an
infinative the way you have:  justput the bare verb in front of the
sentence.  I don't believe that was accepted by Klingon speaking community,
although that may have changed.  The structure I am going to give you is
"conservative"... in other words, I don't think anyone can say that it is
grammatically incorrect for what you are trying to say.

To translate an infinative, you can almost laways pop in those "clipped"
words (at least, it is easier for me to think of them as simply "clipped" or
left out of the English for brevity) and then find an easier way to tranlate
your phrase.  In this case, the "for the purpose that the assemble" meaning
which I gave you is another form of subordinate clause, just like "when the
instructor commands the students"; it is incomplete on its own.

It is also something we can easily translate into Klingon.  If you look on
pages 64 and 65, you will find a description of "purpose clauses".  Guess
what? {{:)  It's a purpose clause! {{:)  To make our fragment a purpose
clause in Klingon, the easiest way to do it is to make it a sentence all by
itself (take away the "for thepurpose that/of/to"):  "they assemble".  That
is easy to translate... a null verb prefix for "they-none", and "to
assemble", <ghom> gives us just <ghom?.  Good.  Now... to turn that into a
purpose-clause... just attach the Type-9 verb suffix, -meH on the end:
<ghommeH>.

Although you didn't have -meH on <ghom>, you DID have it in the right place!
any time you have a purpose clause, it *** MUST *** come before the verb (or
NOUN!) it is modifying.  In this case, you are modifying "as soon as the
instructor commands the students" (as opposed to "the students assemble"),
so it should go before everything else, which is where you had your <ghom>:

        ghommeH ghojwI'pu' ra'DI' ghojmoHwI' ghom  ghojwI'pu'

Okay, now... "from right to left".  This is definitely a spatial issue, and
this isone of the times when you WILL use the type 5 noun suffix, -Daq
(which is often much abused).  You will also want to use the type 5 noun
suffix -v' ("from").  To say "from right to left", you need only say:

        nIHvo' poSDaq

Unfortunately, nouns with type 5's *generally* go before the object of your
sentence (the only exception I can think of is the type 5 -'e', the
topicalizer).  In other words, even though this is at the END of the English
sentence, it has to come *first* in the Klingon.  Since it is associated
with the main part of the sentence, it needs only go in front of that part,
as sppoed to the whole thing:

        
        ghommeH ghojwI'pu' ra'DI' nIHvo' poSDaq ghojmoHwI' ghom  ghojwI'pu'

You can add in "from Junior to Senior" the same way... right after <nIHvo'
poSDaq>.  You can either seperate them with a comma, as is done in English,
or put a <je> after the "from right to left, from Junior to Senior"
structure... which would make it mean "from fright to left and from junior
to senior".  I'm going to leave that part of the translation as an exercise
for the student. {{:)


All in all, you did a VERY good job starting with this!

majQa'!


>I couldn't find words for Senior and Junior I have used Superior and one
who is 
>inferior.  Superior works but there has to be a better way for 
>junior/subordinate.


If this is for the martial arts, perhaps "from beginner to
one-who-is-skilled" might be more appropriate... <taghwI'> for "beginner"
and <po'wI'> for "one who is skilled".


>also I am not sure how to convey left to right.


I hope I helped yo adequately with this question... if not... please ASK! {{:)


>All help is greatly appreciated.


That's what I am here for. {{:)

You made a really nice start... I will be interested to see what you dowith
the rest of it. {{:)


>Qapla'
>batlhro'



--trI'Qal


---
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Captain T'rkal, Commander IKV Hidden Comet
Klingon speaker and net junkie!
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