tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Jun 22 14:03:58 1997
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
RE: Expressing age.
- From: "David Trimboli" <[email protected]>
- Subject: RE: Expressing age.
- Date: Sun, 22 Jun 97 17:47:57 UT
[email protected] on behalf of [email protected] wrote:
> I have read enough messages to know that saying "my name is ..." is a pain
> in tlhingan Hol. But how would you say "My age is ..." ?
> In French (I'm translating litterally into English) you would say
> "My age is 37 years" only in answer to a question such as "What is your
age?"
> and in spoken French you would merely answer "37".
> "I'm aged 37 years" is good for litteracy, but unused in real life.
> What you say usually is "I have 37 years".
>
> What about tlhingan Hol?
>
> {wejmaH Soch ben jIngIpta'} (I was born 37 years ago}, which seems (to me)
> the best way ?
You have the right idea, but the wrong verb. {ngIp} is "borrow." {bogh} is
"be born."
wejmaH Soch ben jIbogh
I was born 37 years ago.
> {wejmaH Soch DIS jIyInlI'} (I've been living for 37 years -- I suspect many
> solecisms here) ? (there's no word for "during" or "for" applying to
> nouns...)
That's right, there isn't. There is a relative clause that can do this:
qaStaHvIS wejmaH Soch DIS jIyIntaH
I live (continuously) while 37 years occur.
This method seems much clumsier than the one with {bogh} above.
> {muqanmoH wejmaH Soch DIS} (37 years made me old, a tentative for
> English "I'm 37 years old") -- this could imply I feel old at 37 years
> because
> I had a hard life.
I'm not entirely certain how the English phrase "years old" came to be, but it
doesn't mean that you feel old. Even if a baby has just turned one, he is
said to be "one year old." However, your Klingon construction is intriguing,
and perfectly understandable.
> I bet this has been asked before I joined this list, anymay a mere example
> would help me a lot.
Marc Okrand himself has used the {bogh} example, though he also added the
aspect suffix {-pu'}, for reasons which he has not explained yet (I did ask).
--
SuStel
Beginners' Grammarian
Stardate 97475.0