tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu May 13 13:34:40 1999
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RE: cursing
- From: "Andeen, Eric" <[email protected]>
- Subject: RE: cursing
- Date: Thu, 13 May 1999 13:38:48 -0700
jatlh qultoQ:
>ja' KIRNEH <[email protected]>:
>>My personal favorite:
>>
>> bImoH 'ej SoHvaD Sut taQ tuQmoH SoSlI'!
>>
>>meaning, "your mother is ugly and she dresses you funny!"
>You might want to try translating that again. Pay particular
>attention to the first word.
>-- ghunchu'wI'
> may i suggest the form:
> moH 'ej Du`tuQmoH taQ SoSlI'
> ? tlhIngan is a concise language, but is that too clipped?
The point ghunchu'wI' was trying to make was that *you* are ugly, and not
your mother (for the purpose of the insult, anyway). The <bI-> is probably
necessary even in clipped Klingon.
Also, <DutuQmoH taQ SoSlI'> probably doesn't work in Klingon. "Your mother
dresses you funny" is ungrammatical in a similar way in English, but we can
get away with it. Other native speakers know what it means. It sounds a
little strange, but it's immediately obvious what it means. We don't have
the same latitude in Klingon: none of us are native speakers, so we have no
way of knowing if a native speaker would get this or just think it was
strange. It might sound like "your mother dresses you funny" and be
understood as almost correct, or it might sound like "your mother funny
dresses you", and sound very wrong and require active thought to be
understood.
pagh
Beginners' Grammarian
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