tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Sep 14 12:23:10 1998
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Re: How do I say...
- From: Steven Boozer <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: How do I say...
- Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1998 14:22:01 -0500 (CDT)
: ja' Voragh:
:
: > 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.
:
: you can avoid this by saying
:
: najtaHvIS torgh, be' legh.
:
: Marc Ruehlaender
"While Torg is dreaming, he sees a woman."
Absolutely. But I notice you needed to add a comma after {torgh} to
distinguish this from:
najtaHvIS, torgh be' legh.
While s/he is dreaming, s/he sees Torg's woman.
: > Be aware, though, that some people avoid using
: >as much punctuation when writing Klingon as they do when writing English.)
Punctuation is a wonderfully simple invention, allowing great subtlety in
the written language. (In speech of course you'd use pauses of different
lengths or intonation to distinguish the various meanings.) We shouldn't
hesitate to take advantage of it to add precision - dare I say "accuracy" -
and power to our writing.
--
Voragh "Grammatici certant et adhuc sub judice
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons lis est." Horace (Ars Poetica)