tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Jan 03 19:57:46 1998
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Re: Qu'vatlh!
>Date: Tue, 30 Dec 1997 07:34:24 -0800 (PST)
>From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
>
>On Mon, 29 Dec 1997 16:33:37 -0800 (PST) Neal Schermerhorn
><[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> But, a question - is there a better way to say "You <taHqeqpu'>"? Seems to
>> me this is impossible with our present understanding of grammar.
>>
>> Qermaq
>
>I think you did just fine. "You are bastards!" and "You
>bastards!" both carry much the same meaning.
It's an interesting question. I remember thinking something much the same
many years ago, as a kid in a Hebrew-speaking summer camp. Someone had
painted a mural or something with Peanuts characters, and had Lucy yelling
"you blockhead!" at Charlie Brown. Hebrew does pronouns in this case much
like Klingon does, so the result sounded like "you're a blockhead." That
didn't sound quite right to me, but at the time I couldn't think of
anything better, aside from just "Blockhead!" Now that I think of it, the
proper Modern Hebrew idiom would likely be something like "blockhead such
as you!" or "a blockhead like you!" (yes, I know that sounds weird, but
it's what they say). I guess you never can tell what idioms are going to
be like in another language. Including Klingon.
That said, I still agree with charghwI'. "You are bastards" is quite good
enough.
~mark