tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Aug 31 08:57:17 1993
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Where am I?
- From: Will Martin <[email protected]>
- Subject: Where am I?
- Date: Tue, 31 Aug 93 10:16:46 EDT
Despite the well argued case for "naDev jIHtaHbogh vISovbe'", I think I
personally prefer what strikes me as more direct and simple:
naDev vISovbe'
The point here is that the MEANING of the question, "Where am I?" is
closer to "I don't know this place/here/hereabouts," than it is to "I don't
know the hereabouts that I am currently being at." The whole meaning of naDev
is the place the speaker is currently being at, so the longer construction is
unnecessarily redundent (not a particularly Klingon trait), serving only our
English speaking lust to use the verb "to be" as many times as possible in
any sentence.
In the one conversation I had with Marc Okrand, he stressed that he was
trying to create not just a language, but an alien mindset when he created
tlhIngan Hol. One part of that was the abandonment of the use of "to be" and
as much as possible, even the CONCEPT of "to be". In other words, when a
Klingon says, "tlhIngan jIH", he is not thinking "I am Klingon." He is
thinking "I Klingon".
Given this, it is weirdly redundent (even if Okrand DID put it in an
example) to say "naDev jIHtaH". My concept of a Klingon mindset is that the
statement would be simply "naDev". Hence the following brief conversation:
nuqDaq SoH
naDev
The second person would not feel compelled to answer "naDev jIHtaH". The
first person also does not need to say, "nuqDaq SoHtaH", even if TKD DOES
show examples of that suffix because the question "nuqDaq" already implies
all the location needs of the sentence, unless timing is significant. In
other words, you might say "nuqDaq SoHtaH" = "Where are you?" just to
differentiate it from "nuqDaq SoHpu'" = "Where have you been?" giving the
additional potential for "nuqDaq SoHlI'" = "Where are you going?" without
having to express the verb "to go".
My point is that my interest in tlhIngan Hol is not just to map out
equivalences for English phrases. It is also to try on a truely foreign
mindset where communication is bluntly to the point; where many things can be
expressed in very few syllables; where a well formed verb is a complete
sentence and where complete sentences exist without any verb at all. Another
fascination is for taking the limited vocabulary and arranging it according
to the rules to express a wonderful variety of meanings.
One example: When I named my car, I considered taj Doq, but realized
that the implications of Doq taj were much more interesting.
-- charghwI'