tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Mar 03 02:48:25 2014
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Re: [Tlhingan-hol] when I was X (years old), from the age of X to Y
De'vID:
>> We know that {loSmaH ben jIboghpu'} is how a Klingon would say
>> "I am 40 (years old)". How would you say "when I was X, I did such
>> and such"?
QeS 'utlh:
> Presumably anyone saying that would know how old they are now, and so
> {loSben Qang vImoj} "I became chancellor four years ago" seems to me the
> easiest way of putting it.
But the listener/reader doesn't necessarily know the speaker/author's
age, especially if the time at which those words were spoken/written
is in the past.
I am translating part of an autobiography. There is a sequence of
"When I was X, I did such and such" in succession. The reader is not
expected to know the author's age when he wrote those words.
De'vID:
>> {wa'maH cha' ben jIboghpu'DI' moQbara' vIghojchoH} seems to me
>
>> like it's saying the speaker is 12, and started learning Mok'bara at
>> birth.
QeS 'utlh:
> True. How about:
>
> qaSpu'DI' DISwIj wa'maH cha'DIch moQbara' vIghojchoH.
This is exactly the solution I arrived at myself. I had wanted to
preserve the usage of {bogh} somehow as it felt more Klingon, but
eventually resorted to year labeling as you suggest.
De'vID:
>> Also, how would you say "from the age of 20 to the age of 25, I studied
>> the bat'leth under Kang"?
QeS 'utlh:
> qaSpu'DI' DISwIj cha'maHDIch, betleH tonSaw' mughojmoHpu' qeng qaStaHvIS
> vagh DIS.
But is it {vagh DIS} or {jav DIS}? 20 to 25 inclusive is 6 years. The
author might be talking anywhere from 5 to just under 6 years.
Rephrasing it in this way forces a particular interpretation.
Actually, the original text is quite un-Klingon in its imprecision.
The author actually says, "From the age of X to Y or Y+1, these events
happened".
--
De'vID
_______________________________________________
Tlhingan-hol mailing list
[email protected]
http://mail.kli.org/mailman/listinfo/tlhingan-hol