tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Aug 02 11:55:33 1998
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Re: KLBC - attempt at translation, v 1.1
- From: "David Trimboli" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: KLBC - attempt at translation, v 1.1
- Date: Sun, 2 Aug 1998 14:24:08 -0400
From: Alan Anderson <[email protected]>
>ja' Qermaq:
>>Exs. Dochvam 'oH nuq'e' vs. Dochvam nuq
>
>One can take "concise" too far. In written communication, {Dochvam nuq}
>seems a bit out of place, something along the lines of "whatsit?" When
>speaking, many imperfectly grammatical "shortcuts" are accepted without
>complaint, but I think written text should be held to a higher standard.
I was under the under the impression that {Dochvam nuq} was a grammatically
correct way to say this, not an incorrect but accepted shortcut. Perhaps
Voragh will be so kind as to repost the appropriate passage from Okrand's
post on the subject.
In English, and probably in many other languages, the written word is more
formal and scrutinized than the spoken word (unless you frequent chat
rooms). However, we don't *know* anything about written Klingon, except
what some of the characters look like. We have no way to tell if written
Klingon is more or less formal than spoken Klingon.
Our Klingon text simulates Klingon speech, not Klingon writing. What you
say is what you write. If you are taking a shortcut when you *say* it,
you'd better write that shortcut down just as you said it. Who knows what
{pIqaD} does? Maybe written, it looks like {Dochvam 'oH nuq'e'}, but when
the same sentence is spoken, it sometimes comes out as {Dochvam nuq}.
Perhaps there's a unique way to write {Dochvam nuq} in {pIqaD}.
David
Stardate 98586.6