tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Dec 18 14:20:21 2006
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Re: Return With Honour
...Paul observes:
>Conversational Klingon tells us that "Klingons may be inaccurate, but they
>are never approximate." (Hmm, how to convey 'approximate' in Klingon?)
Some people have used {loy} "guess" when translating this. Another way is
to contrast {qar} "be accurate" with something like *{qarHa'} - with {-Ha'}
"do wrongly". E.g.:
chaq qarbe' tlhInganpu' 'ach not qarHa'. (?)
>But the idea is the same... :) If Klingons do not use too many words,
>why do they say "four thousand throats" and not "many throats"? Sometimes
>the preferable sentence is not short, but must be beautiful, like music.
"4000 throats" sounds like a traditional figure of speech, probably from
yet another Kahless story unknown to us. Klingons do use numeric idioms in
an approximate sense. For example, there's {wa'maH cha' pemmey wa'maH cha'
rammey je} "twelve days and twelve nights". See KGT p.121:
This is a rather long-winded way to say "a long time" (which
would be {poH nI'} in non-idiomatic speech). It implies a bit
more than that, however, for it is used to mean not only that
the length of an event is long but also that the event is an
important one, worthy of taking up so much time. The expression
comes from the well-known story of Kahless the Unforgettable,
the founder of the Klingon Empire, and his brother, Morath,
who fought for the fabled "twelve days and twelve nights"
because Morath had broken his word and brought shame to the
family.
--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons