tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Oct 18 16:45:57 1993
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Re: wot vItu'laHbe'law'
- From: Paul J. Clegg <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: wot vItu'laHbe'law'
- Date: Mon, 18 Oct 1993 19:45:48 -0400
>> SaqaD: Who here can figure out how to say, "The commander who is bolder
>> than the officer destroyed the enemy space station."?
>>
>> ! @ # $ % ^ & * (Guido1) * & ^ % $ # @ !
>>
>> -- End of excerpt from [email protected]
>
> jIlaj
>
>
> jagh tengchaH Qaw' la'vam
> la'vam jaq law' jaSvetlh jaq puS
>
> Just because you like to build long, convoluted sentences in English
>does not mean I like doing the same in Klingon when two excellently Klingon
>sentences say EXACTLY the same thing more clearly. We can wrestle to
>construct something like your original challenge, but is the effort really
>worth it? Language is more to express a meaning than to move words from one
>system to another without accepting the differences between the systems. Many
>of the messages I hate to try to read on this list are written with more of a
>focus on this kind of technique wrestling instead of more gracefully getting
>a meaning from the mind into Klingon words. We too often try to show off our
>flourish before we even learn how to say simple things simply.
>
>-- charghwI'
I see your point, and you're right. However this doesn't, IMHO, solve all
the questions of the law'/puS constructions...
Actually, I'd put "la'vam jaq law' yaSvetlh jaq puS" first.
One question I would put would be whether or not one could reverse the
construction, such as "yaSvetlh jaq puS la'vam jaq law'", to emphasize the
officer's lack, instead of the commander's excess. Of course, one can
always argue that Klingons wouldn't need to make such a differentiation.
Of course, they could always be fit into a compound sentence:
la'vam jaq law' yaSvetlh jaq puS 'ej jagh tengchaH Qaw' la'vam.
...Paul