tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Sep 11 10:20:04 1998
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Re: "Excuse me" and "bless you"
According to Rose, Thornton:
>
> I know that these phrases would probably be anathema to Klingons, but how
> would one say in tlhIngan Hol "excuse me" and "bless you" (when someone
> sneezes, of course). For "excuse me", I might say {pIchwIj}, which I
> derived from the English slang "my bad". For "bless you", I have tried
> {DaQanlu'jaj} "May you be protected.", but it seems stilted.
Well, technically, these English phrases are usually translated
with Klingon gestures as opposed to phrases. For "excuse me",
you simply push someone out of your way. In Klingon, this is not
considered rude, unless the shove is hard enough to cause
physical injury, like a bruise, in which case, it is considered
a challenge to authority.
If you are of higher rank and someone shoves you and bruises
you, you kill them, or give up your rank, unless you consider
them valuable, in which case you give them a chance to
apologize for their grevous mistake. Possibly, you just shove
them back, harder. They should back down. If they don't back
down, then, well, appropriate action should be obvious.
Shoves that don't cause injury are simply people sorting
themselves out, like humans in cars at a four-way stop sign. If
you believe that you should be in a place blocked by someone
else and you can shove them out of the way without
substantially interfering with whatever they are doing, and you
don't cause them injury, it is expedient and polite to shove
them out of the way.
If you do that to someone of higher rank and they shove you
back, that means you shoved too hard. It is feedback to help
you in future episodes of similar etiquette. It also is a form
of honor because your superior values you enough to not kill
you for your mistake.
As for "bless you", this is a more subtle gesture: You don't
hit them. Klingons don't care about sneezes or shoves or things
like that unless they cause some kind of damage. If I've spent
three hours carving my rendition of <<ghobchuq loDnI'pu'>> from
a bar of soap and you walk up and sneeze on it, your saliva
dissolving some of the finer detail, I will not give you the
gesture meaning "bless you", for example. Most likely, I would
fail to give you that gesture using the center of my forehead
right between your eyes.
I hope this satisfies your need for a translation for these
phrases.
> ~ Thornton
charghwI'