tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Jul 09 10:56:30 1998
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Okrand on {yIH ngaghwI'} (PG13)
- From: Steven Boozer <[email protected]>
- Subject: Okrand on {yIH ngaghwI'} (PG13)
- Date: Thu, 9 Jul 1998 12:54:27 -0500 (CDT)
As if on cue, it seems we have another example of Klingon epithet. Too bad
Okrand didn't translate the entire line of dialogue so we can see how
they're used in *Klingon* sentences.
--------------------- Begin Forwarded Message ---------------------
From: "Marc Okrand" <[email protected]>
Newsgroups: startrek.expertforum
Subject: Re: Marc Okrand
Date: Mon, 6 Jul 1998 01:27:57 -0400
[email protected] wrote ...
>As I specified in my original post, the purpose of getting the phrase
>was to incorporate it into a story I am writing. I do appreciate the
>response and help, but everything I have gotten so far, while it may
>be correct for conversational Klingon, does not fit the blank space I
>have left in my story for it.
> [snip]
>Klingon insults a federation officer in Klingon. Federation officer ignores
>him. Klingon says to other klingons in Fed standard "He does not even know
>when he has been insulted."
>Federation officer: "I cannot be insulted by (a) ________________.
Seems to me that the phrase that best fills in the blank ("I cannot be
insulted by (a) _______") is the one suggested a while back by both SuStel
and Qermaq:
yIH ngaghwI'
(I'd leave the "a" in the English: "I cannot be insulted by a yIH ngaghwI'.")
If this is translated as "one who mates with a tribble," perhaps it sounds
too formal or clinical (in English, not in Klingon) to function as a curse
or insult. If it's translated "tribble mater-wither" or something like
that, it has a somewhat better tone, but it's questionable English and
therefore lacks punch. But English isn't the issue here; Klingon is, and,
unless I'm missing the point, /yIH ngaghwI'/ should work. I trust that, in
the story, the Federation officer who utters the phrase is prepared for what
the Klingon may do next.
---------------------- End Forwarded Message ----------------------
Voragh "Grammatici certant et adhuc sub judice
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons lis est." - Horace, Ars Poetica