tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Nov 30 16:52:41 1999
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
RE: Quch tlho'jaj!
- From: "Andeen, Eric" <[email protected]>
- Subject: RE: Quch tlho'jaj!
- Date: Tue, 30 Nov 1999 17:54:00 -0700
jatlh [email protected]
> Quch tlho'jaj! (Would this be the best translation for
> 'Happy Thanksgiving Day')?
First, the good part: <tlho'jaj>. Since <tlho'> is a noun meaning
"appreciation, gratitude", <tlho'jaj> makes perfect sense as the Klingon
word for the American holiday.
The <Quch> doesn't work quite so well. Even in English, "Happy Thanksgiving"
is a bit of a weird phrase. It's really short for "May you have a happy
Thanksgiving", which is just too long to say when going on the door on
Wednesday evening.
To make a Klingon phrase, start with what the English really means, rethink
it a bit (Klingon doesn't use "have" in this way), and you get "May (your)
Thanksgiving Day be happy". Make sense? If so, we have the perfect
grammatical tool for this: the suffix <-jaj>, which is found in the TKD
appendix. It is used to express wishes and toasts, just like the "may" here.
What you wind up with is:
Quchjaj tlho'jaj!
> I won't drink any HIq at all since I have to work on
> Thanksgiving! :-(
Do'Ha'.
pagh
Beginners' Grammarian
tlhIngan Hol Mailing List FAQ
http://www.bigfoot.com/~dspeers/klingon/faq.htm