tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Oct 30 19:17:53 1996

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RE: KLBC: some translations

>Okay.  These are a bit complicated, though.  You may want to consider starting 
>with something simpler!
>
>>  "I forgot that I'm pretending that I'm not talking to you."
>>  SoHvad jIjatlhbe' jIH 'e' jIHvad jInep 'e' jIlIj.
>
>You got "I'm not talking to you" right (although you mis-capitalized a {D} or 
>two).  {SoHvaD jIjatlhbe' jIH}.  Unfortunately, "pretend" is a concept I've 
>often had trouble with in Klingon myself.  The answer usually lies in 
>recasting the sentence.  I'm not sure if you can use {nep} "lie" in this 
>capacity as you have (i.e. with an object), but I'll go with it for now.

I figured it'd be okay to use lie because it has no object, really. If I
followed the previous posts on quotes, one would say:
<<Qapla'>> SoHvaD jIjatlh
for "I spoke/said 'Success' to you."

I treated nep like a verb of speaking, so I basically meant:
I lie for myself / I lie TO myself

It seemed to me that when one pretends, one lies more to oneself than to others.

>The second verb in an {'e'} sentence must always have a prefix which indicates 
>a singular, third-person object (see the prefix chart on TKD 33).  Therefore, 
>you can't use {jI-}.  {vI-} is the correct prefix to use here.  You've made 
>this mistake twice in the above sentence, so I'll correct that here.
>SoHvaD jIjatlhbe' jIH SoHvaD 'e' vInep 'e' vIlIj.

You're right about the {vI-} except on the *nep*.  I also gleaned from that
conversation that, like the above example, the quote (in this case, what I
"lie") always comes before the inderect object or after the verb. I was
trying to say, basically:

"That," I lie to myself

Perhaps this doesn't apply.

>You'll notice two other changes I made.  First, I changed the {jIHvaD} to a 
>{SoHvaD}.  After all, when you are "pretending," you're usually "lying" to 
>someone else, right?  Secondly, I put it before the {'e'}.  {'e'} is a pronoun 
>which stands in the object position before a verb.  Since you always put nouns 
>with {-vaD} on them before the object (as in {SoHvaD tlhIgnan Hol vIjatlh}, "I 
>speak Klingon to you"), you should put it before the {'e'}.
>
>>  "Your face looks like something my dog spit up."
>>  qablIj rap vay' SopHa'bogh targhwIj.

>You sentence actually reads more like "Something which my targ uneats is the 
>same your face."  That was a very good attempt!  I have three suggestions.  
>First, you probably want to use the word {rur} "resemble" instead of {rap} "be 
>the same."  The things which are the same are probably the subject of {rap}.  
>See my "First attempt" post on this.
>
>Secondly, it is difficult to tell whether this is "Something which my targ 
>uneats" or "my targ which uneats something."  A rule which is not in TKD, but 
>which has been explained by Okrand (in HolQeD, I believe), is that you can put 
>the Type 5 noun suffix {-'e'} on the head noun of a relative clause.  It lets 
>you mark the noun which is the subject of the main verb.  So, 

Right on all of this. I thought that "'e'" thing was in TKD. Let me see . .
. never mind. It seems pretty obvious, though.

>{qablIj rur vay''e' SopHa'bogh targhwIj} *must* mean
>"Something which my targ uneats resembles your face," and
>{qablIj rur vay' SopHa'bogh targhwIj'e'} *must* mean
>"My targh, which uneats something, resembles your face."
>You obviously meant the first one.
>Finally, there is a word for "swallow," {ghup}.  Perhaps you'd rather use the 
>word {ghupHa'}.  To me, at least, this more accurately conveys the idea of 
>"spitting something up."

Yes, I like this one better.

>qablIj rur vay''e' ghupHa'bogh targhwIj
>
>>  "He is sooo stupid that he cleaned the animals with his tongue."
>>  QIpmo' ghaH Ha'dIbaHmey Say'moHmeH jatDaj lu'ghaH.

>Pretty good!  You've got a couple of spelling errors (capitalize those {D}'s, 
>HurghwI'!  And you wrote {lu'ghaH} instead of {lo' ghaH}.  Also, realize that 
>it's not necessary to always specify pronouns like {ghaH}.  You can leave them 
>out if we'll understand what you mean.  You can probably leave off the last 
>{ghaH}.  And to indicate "sooo stupid," you can use {-qu'}: {QIpqu'mo'}.

Yeah, I was copying this off a paper, and my handwriting is not known for
its readability.

>QIpqu'mo' ghaH, Ha'DIbaHmey Say'moHmeH jatDaj lo'.

>>  "I'm sorry, that's the only one I know."
>>  QaS jIH, 'e' neH vISov.
>
>The word {QaS} means "troops"; I don't think that's what you meant.

I meant QoS, once again poor handwriting.

>This is really two sentences in English, and I suggest you make it two 
>sentences in Klingon, two.  It's also important that you say what the "one" 
>thing is.  Without knowing, I'll pick something for an example: "story" {lut}.
>
>{jItlhIj.  lutvetlh neH vISov.}
>"I apologize.  I know only that story."

I just used 'e' to mean "one of those." Is that acceptable?

>{neH} is a special word.  When it follows a noun, it means "alone, only," 
>while when it follows a verb, it means, "merely, just."

And . . . ?
I used it correctly, no?

>>  I was also wondering if it's possible to use moH on a verb with a direct
>>  object, instead of -mo'. How would you do it?
>I'm not sure what you mean.  {-moH} works best when used with a direct object. 
> It means, essentially, "<subject> causes <object> to <verb>."  {-mo'} is both 
>a noun and a verb suffix, which means "because of."  Can you give me an 
>example of the problem?

See, it's like this. Because {-mo'} is in the addendum, I didn't see it at
first. I was puzzling over how to say: His stupidity caused him to use his
tongue . . .

I was just wondering if there was some magic way to say this without using
"because," out of curiosity.

>SuStel
>Stardate 96832.3
>

-Adrian K (aka HurghwI') {{:-)}

             \|||||/
             ( o o )
|--------oOOo--( )--oOOo----------| "tlhutlhmeH HIq ngeb qaq
| http://www.jwp.bc.ca/peregrine  |  law' bIQ qaq puS."
|[email protected]________|      -Marc Okrand

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