tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Apr 16 08:43:34 1998
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Re: My first try at tlhIngan Hol KLBC
- From: "David Trimboli" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: My first try at tlhIngan Hol KLBC
- Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 13:43:03 -0400
From: Qov <[email protected]>
To: Multiple recipients of list <[email protected]>
Date: Tuesday, April 14, 1998 9:31 PM
Subject: Re: My first try at tlhIngan Hol KLBC
>At 12:28 98-04-14 -0700, ghon van HI'rIp wrote:
>}So how does one use {pong}?
>{pong} is a bit of a headache in Klingon. It doesn't mean "be called." It
>means "give a name to." But it seems to need two objects: the object
nameed
>plus the name. You can say: {vengHomvaD V. ponglu'} "One calls this
>village V." I'm not ure we have canon for it, though, and it's awkward to
>use in other constructions, such as the locative you needed. That's why I
>ducked the issue with an alternate construction.
We *do* have canon for {pong}, in a Skybox card.
The object of {pong} is the name. {valQIS vIpong} "I name Valkris."
However, simply saying this doesn't tell you *whom* I am naming, just the
name. To do that, you use {-vaD}:
be'vaD valQIS vIpong.
I name the woman Valkris.
Literally, this comes out as, "I name Valkris; the beneficiary of the
name-giving is the woman."
>"I have been studying for a few
>weeks." = {qaStaHvIS Hogh puS jIHaD}. Weird, eh?
Actually, this would probably work better as
qaStaHvIS Hogh puS jIHaDtaH.
The studying is just as continuous as the few weeks, after all.
>}Is there a good Klingon word for 'bird'? I can hardly imagine that birds
are
>}called 'skycreatures' on Qo'noS.
>
>We're still waiting for that one. Maybe {chalDep} is better, as "fish" is
>{bIQDep}. Or {puvbogh Ha'DIbaH}. I translated {chalHa'DI'baH}
>"skycreature" just to highlight that the word was a creation of the
>translator, and not canon.
We also know of one *type* of bird: {toQ}, a kind of bird of prey. This was
given to us by Marc Okrand in an MSN posting once. Derived from that is the
word {toQDuj} "bird of prey (ship)."
>}So if some Klingon 'bomwI'' would use the word "'IHbe'ghach" that would
>}bmean something like 'beauty-lessness'?
>
>Yes. Good.
That's what it means, but as long as you have a suffix between the verb and
{-ghach}, it won't sound as weird as "beauty-lessness." A good translation
of {'IHbe'ghach} would be "lack of beauty."
mujachmoH 'IHbe'ghachwIj.
My lack of beauty caused me to scream.
Since someone else will undoubtedly point it out, I'll beat them to it: this
could just as easily be stated using non-{-ghach}'d words:
jI'IHbe'mo' jIjach.
I shouted because I am not beautiful.
However, the point is that {'IHbe'ghach} seems to be a normal-sounding word
to Klingon ears, so the best translation would be one that sounded normal to
English-speakers' ears.
Then again, I'm still not convinced that {-ghach} isn't reserved only for
noun/verb identical pairs. I rather like the idea, and there is a bit of
support for it.
SuStel
Stardate 98288.1