tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Nov 04 13:27:00 1993
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tlhIngan 'o' Humghach
- From: [email protected] (Mark E. Shoulson)
- Subject: tlhIngan 'o' Humghach
- Date: Thu, 4 Nov 1993 16:17:57 -0500
>From: [email protected] (The Songbringer -- Marnen to the common fol
> k)
>Date: Wed, 3 Nov 93 15:58:13 EST
>X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]
>Content-Length: 3068
>I have been left in the dark by most of this post. What follows is my attempt
>to make sense of it, together with some comments. (This is not intended as a
>flame, and I'm sorry if it came out as one.)
>Doch tlha' jatlh trI'Qal:
>: Hut: Qaw' Qawbe' pagh
>"9: To destroy or not to destroy."
>I'm assuming you mean >Qaw'be'.<
Probably, but the {pagh} belongs between the verbs. Verb-conjunctions come
between, noun-conjunctions come after.
>: jav: vagh DIS Qu'ma': qIb qum
>"6: Our five-year plan: to govern the galaxy."
>No problems here, except that >-ma'< is only used to show possession of
>language-using nouns, so it should have been >Qu'maj<.
Watch it here. Klingon has no infiitives. It isn't "to rule the galaxy";
it looks more like "That he/she/it rule the galaxy". Should be "qIb
maqum".
>: vagh: <<pu'meywIj yISop>> ja'ta' 'er
>"5: The >'er< told him 'Eat phasers.'"
>If you just mean "said", >jatlhta'< would be better than >ja'ta'<.....
I don't think that's necessarily so. I don't assume that {ja'} implies or
requires an indirect object, I don't think that's implied by the
definition. As a matter of personal taste, I do tend to use it more for
"saying to someone" while just saying in general I'd more likely translate
as {jatlh}, but if I really do mean "told him", I'd probably explicitly use
{ghaHvaD}.
>:
>: wa': tera' wIQaw'ta' 'ej 'o' Humghachvam rIgh wIHevpu' neH
>"1: We destroyed Terra and all we got was this lousy bumper sticker!"
>No problems, except for >Humghach< which should be >Humwi'<.
{rIgh}? Sounds English-idiomatic to me. That wouldn't make sense even to
an English speaker just ten years ago. I'd have stuck with {QIv}. And the
{neH} belongs after the noun to indicate it was all you got, not after the
verb to indicate that that's all you did with it (ref. Sect 5.4). I kinda
like {Qo'noSDaq Suchta' vay' 'ej HIpvam QIv neH vISuqta' [jay']} :-)
~mark