tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Sep 14 10:55:23 1998

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

: >lab StaZ:
: >> how do I say "Dreaming of a Woman'?
: >> All I could come up with is:  bang najlI¼ be¼
: >
: >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.

A "pi" on your screen, is a "1/4" fraction symbol on mine!  Who knows what
on somebody else's?  Stick to plain ASCII text, with no fancy characters or
formatting when posting to a mailing list.  Not everyone uses the same
hardware and software as you do.  It may not be as pretty, but everyone will
be able to read it.
 
: >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.
: >
: >pagh
: >Beginners' Grammarian

I'll insert a bit of canon here which may help.  Here's how Okrand has used
the verb {naj} "dream":

   bInajtaHvIS qeylIS Daghomjaj
   May you encounter Kahless in your dreams! PK
 
   yInajchu'
   Dream well! KGT

As pagh explained, {naj} is used intransitively in both (i.e. it does not
take an object).  Notice also in the PK example one can "meet" {ghom}
someone "while you are dreaming" {bInajtaHvIS}.  This opens up the
*possibility* that you can "see" {legh} people, as well as talk, fight, etc.
with them.  So, another way of saying "Torg dreams of a women" might be:

   najtaHvIS, be' legh torgh
   "While he is dreaming, Torg sees a woman" or, more idiomatically,
   "Torg sees a women in his dreams"

(Punctuation helps in this case.  {najtaHvIS be' legh torgh} could also be
translated "While the women dreams, Torgh sees her" -- i.e. he's spying on
her or seeing her from afar.  Be aware, though, that some people avoid using
as much punctuation when writing Klingon as they do when writing 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>."?

Not quite.  That means "She is dreaming. <female name> is considering a
women".  Remember the SVO word order.  You want to substitute <female name>
for the object {be'}.  If you want to say "He is dreaming. He (Torg) is
considering Mara", to use a known female name, say:

   naj.  mara qel (torgh).

Or, as I've suggested:

   najtaHvIS, mara legh torgh.
   "While he is dreaming, Torg sees Mara" or
   "Torg sees Mara in his dreams"

(I hope pagh BG doesn't go after me with a {'oy'naQ} for venturing to
correct StaZ's sentence, but since it fit in with what I was proposing...)


-- 
Voragh                           "Grammatici certant et adhuc sub judice
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons     lis est."         Horace (Ars Poetica)

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