tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Aug 26 15:09:12 2003

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Re: Dumb Question -- Emphasis

Steven Boozer ([email protected]) [KLI Member] 

...Paul wrote:

>Okay, two dumb questions...  How do I say "Dumb Question", and then my
>main question, how would I emphasize, I guess, pronouns?

Good question since there's no known noun for "question".  We have is the 
verb {ghel} "ask (a question)" and {tlhob} "ask, request, plead" - though 
the latter seems to be used for asking favors.  The closest I could come up 
with is either to use {-Ha'} "do wrongly" - {jIghelHa'} "I mis-ask" - which 
isn't exactly the same thing, or use the verb {Dogh} "be foolish, be silly" 
and use two clauses:  {chaq jIDogh 'ach jIghelnIS} "Maybe I'm foolish (will 
be foolish), but I need to ask".

>Case in point, here at work, someone said, "Thanks" and I turned around
>and said, "No, thank *YOU*".  How would I convey that in Klingon?
>Admittedly this is a little silly, it's a question of verbal emphasis.
>But I think there can be some syntactical sugar there...
>
>   qatlho'  "I thank you"
>   SoH qatlho'  "I thank *you*"  ?
>   SoH'e' qatlho'  "I thank YOU!"  ?
>
>Is that last one even legit?

It's possible.  Okrand has used {-'e'} on a pronoun twice AFAIK:

   lujpu' jIH'e'
   I, and only I, have failed. TKD
   [sic, for {jIlujpu'} (unless it's clipped)]

   'ach HoD, Hevetlh wIghoSchugh veH tIn wI'el maH'e'!
   But Captain, that course will take us into the [Great] Barrier as well. ST5

>   jatlh tlhIngan wa', "qatlho'"
>   jatlh tlhIngan cha', "ghobe', SoH'e' qatlho'!"

I think here you can safely drop {-'e'} unless there's another line:

   jatlh tlhIngan wa', <<qatlho'.>>
   jatlh tlhIngan cha', <<ghobe', SoH qatlho'!>>
   jatlh tlhIngan wa', <<ghobe'! SoH'e' qatlho'!!>>

Each one is emphasized one more degree than the last.  Beyond that, you'll 
have to rely on intonation or textual emphasis.

>On a semi-related note, how would one produce emphasis in text?  In
>English, we tend to do things like capitalize WHAT we want to emphasize,
>or maybe we put *asterisks* around it...  The former isn't a good idea
>for tlhIngan Hol, since capitalization is somewhat important.  The latter
>is possible, I suppose, but I think an asterisk normally indicates
>"wrong" or "questionable" bits, which isn't what we want.

You're right to avoid capitalization.  Generally when writing tlhIngan Hol 
on the List we use asterisks to mark either non-Klingon words (so people 
don't waste time trying to analyze or look them up in the Dictionary) or 
for emphasis.  Using -hyphens- or _underscores_ works too.  Also, note that 
above I used <<angle brackets>> (or French-style guillemets) to mark 
quotations since regular English-style apostrophes and quotation marks can 
be hard to distinguish from the consonant /'/.

We also use the asterisk to mark an (possibly) incorrect word in 
Klingon:  e.g. *{Doghghel}.  But that's usually when quoting a Klingon word 
in English in combination with {curly brackets} to set it off.



-- 
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons

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