Talk About A Party
Pronunciation
tlh is another sound not made in English. It is one single sound that slightly resembles both a "t" and an "l". It explodes like a "t", but out the sides of the tongue like an "l". It is important to keep the tip of the tongue on the roof of the mouth behind the teeth and make the sound with the sides of the tongue. Sometimes English speakers mishear the sound as "kl" and so we wind up with words like tlhIngan coming into English as "Klingon". Note that this is one consonant in Klingon & it is the only time you will see a l (lowercase L) without at least one vowel next to it.
gh is produced at the top of the throat with a raspy gargle or purr & a voiced vibration in the throat. Please note that gh is a single Klingon consonant.
With this and all the previous Unit Tips, you have learned all the sounds of Klingon. Feel free to go back and review any of the sounds that you are still having difficulty with.
Time Stamps
You will learn more time stamps, so let's review their use.
Remember that Klingon verbs do not have tense (past, present, future), so a verb such as yaj could mean "understands, understood, will understand". Since Klingon verbs lack tense, a common way to indicate the tense of a sentence is to note the time frame of the action at the start of the sentence. These are often called "Time Stamps". We use them in English, too:
Yesterday I fought the enemy.
"Yesterday" is a time stamp. In Klingon the word for "yesterday" is wa'Hu':
wa'Hu' jagh vISuv.
In English, time stamps can be moved around in the sentence and it is also possible to say, "I fought the enemy yesterday." This is NOT true in Klingon. In Klingon the Time Stamp must be part of the beginning of the sentence and must be before the object, if there is one (which also means before the verb, whether there is an object or not). As you learn more about Klingon grammar, you will see that there are also other elements that will be part of the beginning of the sentence before the object.
New verb prefixes
Next to jI- for "I …" and bI- for "you …" (for one person), you will learn Su- for "you …" (for multiple people, also some times said as "you guys", "all of you", "you all", or "y'all"). Remember that bI- is for talking to one person and Su- is for talking to multiple people (or one person, but including others with them). All of these prefixes indicate that there is no object – you will learn some prefixes with objects soon.
You will sometimes be presented with an English sentence with the word "you" and no other indication whether this is supposed to be singular or plural. In such cases, Duolingo will usually accept either the Klingon version for singular "you" or for plural "you". But watch carefully for other grammar or context in the exercise that indicates whether the "you" might be singular or plural, such as calling the names of one or more people at the beginning or end of the sentence.
Pronouns
Pronouns can represent a noun, but you must include the appropriate prefix. You will learn more about the following prefixes and pronouns in upcoming lessons. For now just focus on the difference in how prefixes are used and how pronouns are used. In maval maH,"we are smart," the ma- prefix and the maH pronoun both indicate a subject of "we". The ma- prefix is required and the maH pronoun is optional. Without the maH pronoun, maval still means, "we are smart." In jIH cholegh SoH,"you see me," the cho- prefix indicates both the object and the subject which are also represented by the pronouns jIH and SoH. The cho- prefix is required and the jIH and SoH pronouns are optional. Without the jIH and SoH pronouns, cholegh still means, "you see me."
The prefixes are required, the pronouns are not! Pronouns can be left off, since the verb prefix already shows what the subject and object are.
Most of the time Klingons leave the pronouns off and rely on the prefix to carry the information. Pronouns are commonly used to emphasize a subject and/or object, for example, jIqet jIH 'ach bIyIt SoH "I am running but you are walking".
When the null prefix is used for third person subjects and objects, pronouns are sometimes used to clarify rather than emphasize. If we say, mara legh qoq 'ej tI' (tI' meaning "to fix"), we are talking about both "Mara" and a "robot", but it is not completely clear which fixes the other. The first part of the sentence has the qoq doing the action of seeing, so it would make sense that the qoq is also doing the action of "fixing", but on the other hand robots don't usually "fix" people, so maybe it's the other way around. In the sentence mara legh qoq 'ej 'oH tI' ghaH it is completely clear that "The robot sees Mara and she fixes it" since the pronouns 'oH and ghaH limit who the action is done to and who is doing the action.
ghaH vs 'oH
Unlike English, Klingon does not use separate pronouns for male or female: ghaH is used for all "beings capable of using language" (Klingons, humans, etc.) regardless of whether they are male or female. It can be translated as either "he" or "she" (or "him" or "her" as an object). If you are asked to translate ghaH from Klingon to English and the rest of the exercise does not make it clear whether the person is male or female, then the exercise should accept both "he" or "she" as correct answers. Because this is an educational environment and we need to be clear on the differences of singular vs plural clear, we do not accept "they" as a translation for ghaH in this course, but we do encourage the use of singular "they" in other contexts.
'oH ("it") is used for other things: animals, plants, body parts, inanimate objects, etc. Klingon is similar to English in that "things" are all "it" – there are no feminine forks or masculine chairs. However, unlike English pets and even intelligent robots are likely to be called 'oH. There may occasionally be nouns, such as an "android" or a "parrot", for which it is difficult to determine if it is a "being capable of language". This is not a feature of grammar, but rather it is a philosophical concept which is open to debate outside of this course. There is not necessarily any correct answer for these and different people might use different pronouns. In this course, you will be marked wrong if you do not refer to these entities as 'oH.
This division into "beings capable of using language" and "everything else" is a common system of classification in the Klingon language and is also used in forming plurals and in possessive endings, which will be taught later.
Vocabulary
Su- – you (plural subject, no object) (pre)
SoH – you (singular) (pro)
ghung – be hungry (v)
wa'leS ram – tomorrow night (n)
chegh – return (v)
Hagh – laugh (v)
