tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Mar 30 19:08:08 1996

Back to archive top level

To this year's listing

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]

Re: KLBC:nonsence

Daniel writes:
>At the moment I'm practicing my sentances. Is the following a legal sentence?
>
>bang joghbatlh 'ej Heghbatlhba'

Not only isn't it a legal sentence, it's not made with legal words. :-(
Let's see what we can do about it.

>A loved one stooped with honor and obviously died with honor.

{jogh} is "quadrant"; "stoop" is {joD}, but that's the least of its problems.
The first major error is your attempt to use {batlh} as a verb suffix.  It's
an adverbial word, and should appear by itself at the front of the sentence.
See TKD section 5.4 for an explanation of adverbials.  The second mistake is
the placement of {bang}.  It's the subject, so it must come *after* the verb.
Fixing these gives {batlh joD bang 'ej batlh Heghba'}.

>I'm not sure, I know it's nonsence, but if children learn that way, I do. It
>could mean; "a not bold, brave Klingon has still got honor, but that's all
>he dies with."

I suppose it *could* mean that, in the same way "glory" could mean "a nice
knock-down argument" when Humpty Dumpty wanted it to.  However, few people
would be able to understand it as meaning that until you told them!  If it
is supposed to refer to a "not bold, brave Klingon", then it really should
at least try to use the words {jaqbe'}, {yoH}, and {tlhIngan}.

Here's how I might say it:
{batlh ghajtaH jaqbe'bogh tlhIngan yoH, 'ach HeghtaHvIS batlh neH ghaj}

-- ghunchu'wI'               batlh Suvchugh vaj batlh SovchoH vaj

Back to archive top level