tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Sep 14 00:56:56 1998
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Re: How do I say...
- From: "Andeen, Eric" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: How do I say...
- Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1998 00:56:09 -0700
- Importance: Normal
lab StaZ:
> I am not very fluent in the language... but I am working
> on it. My question for he/she who is willing to indulge
> me in this little question:
Welcome to the list, StaZ. My name is pagh, and I am the current Beginners'
Grammarian. It's my job to help beginners learn Klingon. Whenever you have a
post you want help with, mark it for my attention by putting the letters
KLBC in the subject line. That way nobody else will reply before I do, and I
will probably get to it sooner.
> how do I say
> "Dreaming of a Woman'?
WHO is dreaming? I can't help you with a sentence unless it is a complete
sentence.
> All I could come up with is:
> bang najlI¹ be¹
> is this right?
You got some of the right elements. To start with, I'm not sure what that
weird character in the words <najlI'> and <be'> is. The character we
normally use is just the regular apostrophe <'>, and anything else tends to
look strange.
The most important thing to remember is basic Klingon sentence structure.
English sentences go Subject-Verb-Object (SVO), but Klingon is just the
reverse: Object-Verb-Subject (OVS). What you have said then is "a woman is
dreaming ..." instead of what you want. Another important thing is that the
word <naj> just means "dream", not "dream about", so there is no direct way
to express your sentence. You can't "dream a woman" in Klingon. What you can
do is "consider" someone while you dream. This sounds weird in English, but
is perfectly natural in Klingon. What you wind up with is:
naj. be' qel.
This means "He is dreaming. He is considering a woman". If someone in
particular, is dreaming, that person goes in the subject spot in the OVS
sentence. Take Torg (torgh in Klingon), for example:
naj torgh. be' qel.
"Torg is dreaming. He (Torg) considers a woman." translated literally, or
"Torg is dreaming about a woman." translated into more normal English.
> Qapla'
pagh
Beginners' Grammarian