tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Feb 07 19:00:13 2004

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Re: Genesis 1:1-5

Scott Willis ([email protected]) [KLI Member] [Hol po'wI']

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Daniel Abraham" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2004 2:06 PM
Subject: Re: Genesis 1:1-5

> > ngabwI':
> > This use of {mung} "feels" wrong to me, as well. You could
> > try something like {taghDI' Hoch} "When everything began..."
>
> bIjaj:
> Isn't {Hoch taghlu'DI'} more appropriate, indicating that everything
_begun_
> instead of _began_?

{Hoch taghlu'DI'} "When everything was begun (by somebody)..."
{taghDI' Hoch} "When everything began..."

The second usage is taken from PK:
{taghbej mu'qaD veS} "Curse warfare has definitely begun"

So I guess it depends on how explicit you want to be WRT exactly who started
what.

> > ngabwI':
> > This may not work with
> > the Hebrew, but you might want to say something like {tlham
> > Hutlh yav} "The ground lacked order." (Lit, gravity.) This
> > *might* be closer to the "chaos" idea you spoke of.
>
> bIjaj:
> tlham - now that's an elegant Klingon re-phrasing!

Wish I could take credit. It's in KGT, pg 165.

> bIjaj:
> An unrelated question though: am I correct in translating {chenbe' yav 'ej
> chIm} as "the ground did not take form and it was empty", and {chenbe' 'ej
> chIm yav} as "the ground was empty and it did not take form"?

I would not translate the second sentence as "the ground was empty and it
did not take form", because the first verb in the sentence is {chenbe'}, not
{chIm}.
I would translate this as "The ground did not take form and was empty", even
though the explicit noun is not actually associated with {chenbe'}, but with
{chIm}.

And here's why:
When I'm reading, or on rare occasions, hearing, Klingon, my mind tends to
put a "nominative stamp" on whatever comes after the verb. You can *almost*
"feel" it "click". It's the exact same "click" that I get when I hear a
sentence like "Red was the sun". You know exactly what was red, despite the
fact that the subject was, strictly speaking, in the wrong place for an
English sentence.
(I'm afraid I really haven't the vocabulary to describe this, but I've no
doubt that others on the list will know exactly what I'm talking about.)

When I'm listening to and reading English, my brain takes the first noun it
gets and gives that the "nominative stamp". It then assumes that all verbs
it receives after that are being executed by that noun. "Then dog runs and
it jumps". The dog, almost unambiguously, is both running and jumping.
"It runs and the dog jumps." What's running?

With Klingon, my brain seems to be willing to "wait for the subject", as it
were. It collects verbs, waiting for a noun, and makes that noun the
subject. {qet 'ej Sup targh}Almost no doubt, the targ is running and
jumping. {qet targh 'ej Sup} Some momentary confusion as to who or what is
jumping there.

> > ngabwI':
> > But, does the Hebrew call for "great fissure", or the like,
> > where the KJ English calls for "the deep"?
>
> bIjaj:
> I struggled with this word for quite a while. I guess "great fissure" is
the
> most literal, but more importantly the most neutral word I could think of.
> Other suggestions are very welcome.

::shaking off headache from brain calisthenics:: Very well, {Qargh'a'} it
is. I've nothing to contribute to that end, I'm afraid.

> > ngabwI':
> > "Let there be light" has always seemed to be a command to me.
> > Go with what the Hebrew tells you. If it is an imperative in
> > Hebrew, use {yIwovchoH!} "Become bright!".
>
> bIjaj:
> It is indeed a command, and "yIwovchoH" was my first guess, but I couldn't
> be sure if it's ok to use {yI-} since there's no specific "you" or "you
> (plural)" to be commanded.

Well, it can be used in English that way, and in Japanese and German. It can
apparently be used that way in Hebrew as well. As a matter of fact, the idea
of an imperative not in the second person is a little hard to wrap my head
around. Does anyone know of a language in which you can give a command to
anyone but a second person?

Unless and until someone is able to tell us otherwise, this usage is
perfectly acceptable. Go ahead, you can use it.

> bIjaj:
> By the
> way, if I'm not mistaken, doesn't {wovbogh Hoch} mean "everything which
> reflects light"?

Perhaps, only in as much as everything light-colored *must* reflect light.
But I would not describe a mirror as {wov}, if that's what you're getting
at.

> > ngabwI':
> > As an alternative to {legh}, you could use {tu'} "to find".
> > {'ej QaQ wovbogh Hoch 'e' tu' joH'a', 'ej Hurghbogh Hochvo'
> > wovbogh Hoch chev.} "And God found everything bright to be
> > good, and He separated everything bright from everything dark."
>
> bIjaj:
> jIHvaD muQap. I think judging something to be good fits better than actual
> sight (an idiom?).

I thought this usage was idiomatic as well. Maybe a mistake that became a
rule, much like the "prefix trick".
{BTW, you're probably going for {jIHvaD Qap} "It works for me." {jIHvaD
muQap} means something like "It functions me for me.")

> > ngabwI':
> > I think I'm done now. Thanks for your patience.
>
> bIjaj:
> Qo', _SoH_ qatlho' _jIH_!

{qay'be'}

--ngabwI'
Beginners' Grammarian,
Klingon Language Institute
http://kli.org/
HovpoH 701140.1

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