tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Sep 15 14:23:37 1997

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Re: KLBC: vulqanganpu'



At 01:38 PM 9/15/97 -0700, M'Sa'la wrote:
>jIyajbe  thlhIngan (Very Little) Please Translate into Earth English for
>I am still Learning..

A big majQa'  (well done!) to M'Sa'la for explaining her difficulties in
tlhIngan Hol even though she is brand new here.  I challenge many who have
been here longer to do the same.

bIyoH, M'Sa'la - You are brave, M'Sa'la

M'Sa'la: A few points about your sentence: One of the things that makes
Klingon different from English is the word order.  Object-Verb-Subject.  So
to say "I don't understand the Klingon language" you say the Klingon words
for "Klingon language I-don't-understand-it."  (You need to say "Klingon
language" because {tlhIngan}--and be careful to spell it right--just means
"a Klingon," the person.)  The word {jIyajbe'}--note that the little {'}
mark on the end is as important as any other letter--means "I don't
understand," but only when the thing that you don't understand isn't stated
in the sentence.  To say you don't understand *Klingon*, you need to change
the beginning of the word to {vI-}. See the beginning of section 4 in your
dictionary for more about this.

The correct way to say your sentence is then:

tlhIngan Hol vIyajbe'

I recommend you read through the grammar part of the dictionary carefully
and send to this list questions about anything that isn't clear.  Soon you
will be able to say: {tlhIngan Hol vIyajbej}  -- I *do* understand Klingon.

Qov  ([email protected])
Beginners' Grammarian



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