tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Sep 14 06:44:45 1998

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Re: How do I say... (ATTN: pagh)

>> 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.

gotcha.

>> 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.

I am sorry.  It has been along time since I have done anything with 
Klingon... I used to know the rules better.  I had just assumed that you 
would figure out my meaning... as you did. =)

>> All I could come up with is:
>> bang najlI¼ be¼
>> 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.

I don't know how those got that way.  They started on my machine as <'> 
but somewhere in transit they ended up becoming the greek letter "pi"... 
go figure.

>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.

okay, literal translation of that is Dream Female Consider.  I guess I am 
confused. Is the "he is" assumed? 

>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.

K, same question...  but the Torg is dreaming part makes sence.  so, 
using logic... could I say...

naj. be' qel <female name>.

would that be right?  meaning "he is dreaming. he is considering <female 
name>."?

Qapla'

>> Qapla'

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