tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Oct 13 09:48:38 1998
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Re: KLBC (qeqchu'wI'ghom)
- From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: KLBC (qeqchu'wI'ghom)
- Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 12:48:21 -0400 (Eastern Daylight Time)
- In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>
- Priority: NORMAL
On Tue, 13 Oct 1998 09:03:33 -0700 (PDT) [email protected] wrote:
> qeqchu'wI'ghom chu' puqwI'.
"My child engages a drillmusiciangroup." Are you German? While
Klingon does have the ability to jam nouns together into
compound nouns, canon does not show us that this is extremely
common and we've never seen an example of three nouns jammed in
that way.
The simple truth is that there is no known noun for "marching
band" in Klingon. For that matter, there isn't one in English,
either. That's why we use two words.
In Klingon, I'd tend to explain a term like that before using
it. Otherwise, you are not communicating. You are just making us
guess. It may be entertaining to you, but likely it is less
entertaining to those to whom you present this little mystery.
Consider:
yIttaHvIS QoQ chu'bogh ghomvaD jeSchoH puqwI'.
I'm not wild about this grammar, but I think it follows the two
examples we have in canon of Type 5 suffixed nouns acting as
head noun of a relative clause with the Type 5 suffix fitting
the function of the relative clause within the main clause.
There's probably a simpler way to explain that...
Maybe it would be better to just rewrite it:
yIttaHvIS QoQ chu'bogh ghom'e' tu'lu'. ghomvamvaD jeSchoH puqwI'.
> Qav *Saturday* jaj 'ovta'.
I'm pretty sure {Qav} just means "last" as in "final", not as in
"previous". The bartender on the audiotape (I forget which one)
yells out {'eb Qav! 'eb Qav}, and it is clear that he means this
is the final opportunity, not the previous one.
Far better would be if you just counted how many days ago the
event happened and said {X-Hu'}. It is now Tuesday, so "last
Saturday" would be {wejHu' 'ovta'.}
> 'ovtaHvIS SIS wISIQta'.
{SIS} is a verb, not a noun. Try that again.
> ('oy'taH HughwIj!).
Fine. Not that it hurts. You just said it well. "My throat was
hurting." I express that as past tense because the time stamp
still in force is {wejHu'} and you've indicated continuous pain.
If you wanted to indicate that the rain happened then and the
pain happens now, you need a new time stamp.
> batlh muchta'.
"They presented honorably.
> jaj wItivta'qu'
Watch your case. {I} is never "i" in Klingon. When you read a
lot of it, this will become downright disturbing to you. iT
wOuLd bE lIkE rEadInG EngLIsH iN miXeD cAsE.
"We very much set out to enjoy the day and we enjoyed it. Our
enjoyment was very much an accomplishment." Note that you are
making a bigger deal out of it being an accomplishment than you
are that you enjoyed it. "We very much accomplished that we
enjoyed the day." This is different from {jaj wItIvqu'ta'} which
would have meant "We accomplished very much enjoying the day."
> ("qeqchu'wI'ghom" is my attempt at describing a Marching Band, which brings me
> to a question: if I wanted to say "our marching band", would the ending be
> "-ma'" or "-maj"? The band is not a living being, but it is made up of living
> beings?)
Group words do not get the "uses language" suffix because the
groups are not capable of using language. Only the members of
the group can do that.
> SIHwI'
charghwI' 'utlh