tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Dec 17 11:52:31 2003
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Re: Klingon WOTD: taH (v)
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Andrew Marrington" <[email protected]>
> To: <[email protected]>
> Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2003 4:25 AM
> Subject: Re: Klingon WOTD: taH (v)
>
> > ma'Sa:
> > To the Beginning Grammarian: Does that even vaguely resemble anything
> which
> > makes sense?
>
> LOL It's actually "Beginners' Grammarian", but "Beginning Grammarian"
works
> in my case, I suppose... }}: )
Arrrgh! Why bother with Klingon when my native tongue is bad enough! :)
>
> > ma'Sa:
> > "Star Trek VI as canonical" wIlajba'chugh....
> > "If we accept Star Trek VI as canon....
>
> This is a tough one. I think this is a matter of missing words. (That's
why
> you used all the English, right?) As far as I know, we have no canon word
> for "canon". I would probably go with a recast: Try saying {qarchugh *Hov
> leng* jav...} "If Star Trek VI is accurate..."
>
> (Please note that {Hov leng} "star travel, voyage, trip" is used often on
> this list for "Star Trek", but is not canon.)
Yes, all that English was there in lieu of a nice Klingon word for canon. I
might've said "if Star Trek VI is accurate", but that it is accurate as a
story is sort of irrelevant as to whether or not it is "canon" as far as the
Klingon language is concerned. In the FAQ for this list, I believe there is
some discussion as to in the broadest sense, anything we see on screen is
"canon Klingon", but that the list generally restricts what it considers to
be canon to Okrand's works. "If we broaden the definition of canon to
include Star Trek VI" might've been better, although far more problematic
for such a limited Klingonist as myself! :)
>
> > ma'Sa:
> > <<taH pagh taHbe'>> jatlh Hamlet.
> > Hamlet says <<taH pagh taHbe'>>.
>
> {maj} }}: )
>
> Note that the direct quote {taH pagh taHbe'} is not the direct object of
> {jatlh}.
>
> {<<taH pagh taHbe'>> jatlh Hamlet} is actually two sentences:
> "To be or not to be." Hamlet says.
>
> So, it is equally valid switched around, too:
>
> {jatlh Hamlet: <<taH pagh taHbe'>>}
> "Hamlet speaks. 'To be or not to be'."
>
> The only valid direct objects of {jatlh} are a {Hol} "language" ({tlhIngan
> Hol}, {DIvI' Hol}, etc.) or a noun describing speech ({mu'} "word", {SoQ}
> "speech, address", etc.)
Yep. I was wondering why it didn't feel right the next time I used jatlh the
way I did. Thankyou!
>
> > ma'Sa:
> > "To be or not to be" mugh Dochvam 'e' lujatlh DIvI' nIHwI'pu'.
> > The Federation's thieves say that this translates as "To be or not to
> be".
>
> Couple of problems here:
>
> {mugh} means "to translate", not "to translate as". For this situation, I
> would use {'oS} "to represent".
Ah. Yes, I knew I was going to have problems with this, which is why I did a
search of the list archives to see how it had been used in the past (eg near
the bottom of this e-mail:
/tlhIngan-Hol/1993/October/msg00237.html), which led me to
believe I could say things like: <<taH pagh taHbe'>> mugh "To be or not to
be". I take it then, this is wrong, and I misread? Maybe I shouldn't rely on
e-mails from 10 years ago....
> {Doch} is a physical object. {Doch} does not have the versatility that the
> word "it" has in English. We have other words to cover these uses: {ghu'}
> "situation", {wanI'} "event, phenomenon", etc. In this case, I would use
> {mu'tlhegh} "sentence", the noun describing the "antecedent" {taH pagh
> taHbe'}.
Saying "this sentence" certainly seems better than "this thing" in this
context!
> As for {taH} meaning "to exist", you're very close. {taH} actually means
"to
> continue, endure, go on". This is what Hamlet was really saying in the
play.
> (He was contemplating suicide in that soliloquy). So in a weird little
> coincidence, the Klingon is closer to the intended meaning of the original
> English than the original English itself! (Cool, huh?) }}: )
Heh, I didn't have my copy of TKD on hand whilst writing that e-mail, and I
had forgotten that taH meant "to survive" instead of "to exist/live", but
yes, it is quite a coincidence. But what do you mean "the original English"?
:)
No doubt this will be one of the many nice coincidences I will encounter in
my struggle with my copy of The Klingon Hamlet.
>
> And now I think I see the problem: {taH} "to continue" and {taH} "to be at
a
> negative angle" are homophones: they sound the same. It is up to the
> listener to determine the intended meaning of the verb from context:
I think that the first translation of "taH" I saw was "to be at a negative
angle" and I remember trying to twist that into something like "to continue
living despite negative things", or "to exist in a
disadvantageous/undesirable situation" until I realised that there were two
taHs. :)
> --ngabwI'
> Beginners' Grammarian,
Must... remember... title...
ma'Sa
(taghwI' Soy')