tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Mar 27 14:15:54 2006

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Re: <Bloodwine> tlhIngan

Terrence Donnelly ([email protected]) [KLI Member] 

--- Shane MiQogh <[email protected]> wrote:

> wejpuH... (probably the most unused word out there,
> i had to give it credit.)
>    
>   Doqqu'lu'chugh, 'e'be'lu' 'Iw tlhIngan. (If it is
> red, it is not klingon blood.)
>    
>   That brings up another idea of mine... is 'e'lu'
> even correct? Perhaps i should just use a noun
> intead... lol

There is only one use of {'e'} in Klingon: as an
object of a verb, to refer back to a previous verb.
You can use it with another verb: {'Iw HIq vItlhutlh
'e' vIHech} "I intend to drink bloodwine", or you
can use it by itself, to refer to a previously
stated verb: {'e' vIHech je} "I also intend this
(i.e. to drink bloodwine)".  It has no other use
in Klingon.  Although it is a pronoun, it can
never participate in the "pronoun as copula"
statements we talked about before.

You also seem kind of {-lu'}-happy there. I think
you are trying to account for the "it" in the
English sentence by using {-lu'}, but they aren't
at all equivalent.  Your sentence should simply
read {Doqqu'chugh, tlhIngan 'Iw oHbe'}.

In {Doqqu'} "it is red", the pronoun "it" doesn't
have to be accounted for, the verb with prefix
(in this case, the 0-prefix) contains the idea of
"it".  (I'm not sure you need the {-qu'} on {Doq},
but I'll give you a pass on that one).

Your word order for "Klingon blood" is backward:
{'Iw tlhIngan} means "the blood's Klingon".

The idea of "it is not" is expressed as {'oHbe'};
I told you above why {'e'} is the wrong word, and
again you don't need {-lu'} to convey the idea of
"it", since that is done by the {'oH}.

I guess it's never spelled out explicitly, but
the order of "pronoun copula" statements is always
Noun-Pronoun-(Noun), as shown by the phrase
{tlhIngan maH}.  You can have only one side of
the noun group, but we've always seen it come before
the pronoun in that case. So "it is X" comes out
in Klingon as "X it is".

-- ter'eS BG

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