tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Nov 08 08:25:40 2011
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Re: [Tlhingan-hol] Eurotalk - New Words - Shopping
At 00:25 08/11/2011, Philip Newton wrote:
On Wed, Nov 2, 2011 at 20:48, Qov <[email protected]> wrote:
>> scissors - cha''etlh pe'wI'
>
> I didn't guess this one but should have.
pe'wI' is pretty clear - something that cuts.
But what is cha''etlh? Is it a new word? If so, what does it mean?
cha' 'etlh are two blades... is there a space missing? Is {cha''etlh}
{cha' 'etlh}, just smooshed together? Or something else?
I can't imagine it being any more than cha' + 'etlh. It's notable for
being a number-noun and not a noun-noun, but other than that
"two-blade cutter" is too obvious to be avoided.
>> umbrella - SIS yoD
>
> guessed it!
Does this mean that we now have canon confirmation of a noun {SIS} "rain"?
Probably more canon confirmation of the fact that people don't always
think in Klingon when they're combining words. I'm happy with it
being an "it's raining shield".
As far as I knew, we had a verb {SIS} "to rain", but no noun.
But if this were a verb, then an umbrella (umbreally? wtf, fingers?)
would be a "the shield rains", which seems... unlikely. (Can the verb
{SIS} even take an overt subject in Klingon? It can't really in
English - *"the cloud rains" or *"the sky rains" seems off to me.)
It's not acting as a regular verb. Maybe it's a shortened form of
SIStaHvIS yoD. Maybe the noun SIS persists only in this ancient
construction and can't be used elsewhere.
{SIS yoD} makes most sense to me as a noun-noun construction: "rain
shield". But that presupposes a noun {SIS}.
Meanwhile, what about {peD}? That's also only a verb, as far as I
know. I wonder whether we'd be justified in guessing a noun {peD}
"snow".
There's a little round bullseye in Klingon that consists of only
those parts of the language that we know to be excruciatingly
correct. Using only language that hits that target requires you to
avoid using some words at all, because we don't have canon to confirm
their usage, or because canon is ambiguous. The next circle out uses
verbs not seen in canon that could be wrong, but could be right.
Things like Mr. Klingon autotranslation. falls slightly off the
target but still hits the block it's mounted on. My goal as a
Klingonist is to know where the centre ring is, and be able to hit it
when aiming carefully, to get most of my shots in the next ring out.
I raise some eyebrows because I like to take difficult shots and
aren't too unhappy when a few end up scattered further. It is also my
goal to understand Klingon as far out as possible.
Postulating a noun peD based on a construction that would be easier
to interpret in the presence of a noun SIS is further out on the
target than I would give you any points for.
Or if the snow falls as hard balls of ice, I suppose that
would be {rI'} :D
And that, as you know is off the paper.
>> towel - QaDmoHwI' DIr
>
> I have just called it a QaDmoHwI'
I wonder why it's not {QaDmoHmeH DIr}? I would have expected a -meH in
that sort of construction.
Perhaps the construction is more specifying the sort of QaDmoHwI'
than the sort of DIr.
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