tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Sep 11 17:05:32 2003

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Re: KLBC: thlIngan Hol Google

Lieven (Quvar valer) ([email protected]) [KLI Member] [Hol ghojwI']

Am 18.08.2003 05:58:55, schrieb "Spencer Daniel" <[email protected]>:

>Okay, so you know how you can set Google to be in Klingon?  Well, they use 
>the -wI' suffix a lot, but I was wondering if it should really be -ghach.  
>it seems like they want a nominalizer for things like "a search" (so it 
>would be nejghach and not nejwI'). 

jatlh taD:
>Since this was marked KLBC, I'll let the Beginner's Grammarian comment on
>the grammaticality of {nejghach} if he wants.

Thanks. I almost missed this one mail, but now I want to comment:

The difference is that with the suffix {-wI'}, a verb becomes a noun meaning "someone who does 
...". -- the english counterpart is "-er" as in "worker" -- but it's not a suffix to produce nouns.
Such is {-ghach}. It makes a verb with a suffix to a noun, {quvHa'} "be dishonored", 
{quvHa'ghach} "dishonor" literally "be-dis-honored-ness". And it works only with verbs which 
already have a suffix, it cannot be stuck to the bare verbstem.
And now to answer your question:
You're right, there is a difference between "a search" and {nejwI'} "a searcher". But how can you 
know if the website is a literal translation? There are many possibilities when translating.

Quvar.

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