Negatives and questions

You will come across some adjectivals and verbs that are negative — he is not handsome, I am not stupid — and/or are questions — is he handsome? are you smart?.

These are formed with the verb suffix -'a' for a yes/no question and the verb suffix -be' for negative. The verb suffix -'a' is classified as a "type 9" verb suffix and will always be the last suffix on a verb. The verb suffix -be' is classified as a "rover", and the nature of its "roving" will be explained once you have learned more suffixes.

These suffixes can be added to any verb to turn it into a negative or a question. For example, jIQong "I slept", jIQongbe' "I did not sleep", jIQong'a'? "did I sleep?"; bIval "you are smart", bIvalbe' "you are not smart", bIval'a'? "are you smart"?

Even negative questions are possible: valbe''a' torgh? "Is Torg not smart?", yItbe''a' mara? "Didn't Mara walk?" (Note that the -'a' is placed after the -be' since it always comes last on the verb.)

Please note that the -'a' verb suffix is not used when there is a question word such as "who", "what", "where", "when", "why", or "how". It is only used to turn a statement into a yes/no question. Question words will be covered later in this course, but you have already had a preview with questions like nuq 'oH ponglIj'e' ("What is it your name?"). Note that the suffix -'a' is not used because that is not a yes/no question and instead uses a question word.

The words HISlaH and ghobe'

HISlaH means "yes" and ghobe' means "no". These words are primarily used to answer yes/no questions. There are other words for refusal or acceptance, which English often uses "yes" and "no" for, but Klingon uses Qo' (which is used to express refusal, as in "I won't!") and lu' (which is used to express acceptance, as in "I will!"). Outside of this course, you may also see the word HIja' which also means "yes" and is a direct synonym to HISlaH with no different connotations. This course will only show you the word HISlaH for "yes".

Note that unlike the English word "no", the words ghobe' and Qo' cannot be used as determiners (as in "We have no bananas."), nor as adverbs ("I am no better."); they are strictly used as exclamations. For those other meanings, Klingon requires you to negate the verb, instead, with the suffix -be'.

Apostrophes and quotes

Remember that Klingon uses the apostrophe ' as a letter.

It does not use the double-quote character " as a letter — when you see what might look like a double-quote in the middle of the word, it is actually two apostrophes side by side.

For example, maw' means "to be crazy" or "he/she is crazy"; when you add the question suffix -'a', you get maw''a'? "is he/she crazy?".