tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Oct 19 16:15:26 1993

Back to archive top level

To this year's listing

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]

Re: Daily Musings

On Oct 19,  5:43pm, [email protected] wrote:
> Subject: Daily Musings
> 
> Well, I was in class today, and came up with the hugest compound word (as
> well as some simpler sentences I thought I'd fly by you guys).
> 
> cha'leS ghuntaHghachHolpaQDI'norghvaD chov vIchaj.
> 
> Day after tomorrow I have an exam in programming languages class...  :)

     Eeeeeeeeeeeeew! ghewmey! Your OTHER language is GERMAN, right?

     Just because English has "ing" in "programming" does not mean "taH"
belongs in "ghuntaHghach". Besides, I think it would be more in the spirit of
Klingon to call it "De'wI' Hol". We don't talk about "tlhInganHol", after
all. We talk about "tlhIngan Hol". cha' mu'mey. Also, in the term "tlhIngan
Hol", "tlhIngan" is not an adjective. It is a noun. It is the name of the
being who uses "Hol". Given that, a programming language would be "De'wI'
Hol", or "computer language".
 
> (Yeah, it's a BS word...  But it brings up my following point:)
> 
> That huge word is my attempt to come up with a way of saying "Programming
> Languages Class".  This doesn't really fit the noun-noun construction
> (it's not really "class' programming languages", nor is it "the programming
> languages' class").  So does this mean I'm forced to use that unweildy
> compound noun.

     Sorry. I had missed your point because I could not understand the
Klingon sentence at all, since I could not find "chaj" anywhere in TKD and
the loose verb "chov" didn't seem to fit the English translation. Ohhhhh! You
meant "vIghaj"! Then, I suppose "chovghach" or "chovwI'" might have been
better than the bare verb? This is, so far as I can tell, another case of not
enough words in TKD, unless someone has a more inventive, graceful term?

     I do respect the problem. I would have said:

               cha'leS muchov De'wI' Holmey ghojmoHwI'wI'  
     
     "Two days from now, my teacher of computer languages evaluates me."

> So my guess is that my huge word is at least partially correct.  Though
> this example may be incorrect, is it "legal" to use verb suffixes before
> the -ghach nominalizer?

     It is legal. This particular example was a little misguided, but it is
quite legal to use verbal suffixes before the nominalizer, and then it's okay
to follow that with noun suffixes. Have fun making waaay big words. Just
don't expect anyone to read them waaaay fast, okay? Impressive, yes.
Communicative? Rarely, though once in a while, there is the perfect
construction that beautifully expresses a thought through monsterously
multiple affixes.

> Other stuff I came up with...
> 
> Dalqu' SoQvam
> jatlhlaHbe'chu' ghojmoHwI'vam
> 
> ...Paul
 
     Hmmmm. Interesting. I'm sure this is not what chu' was intended to mean.
It's worth looking at and musing on, but I would translate this as "This
speech is very boring. This professor is clearly not able to speak." If you
had said, "jatlhlaHchu'be' ghojmoHwI'vam", that would have come closer to
your meaning: "This teacher is not clearly able to speak." Then again, the
Klingon would REALLY mean something closer to "It is not clear that this
teacher is able to speak." The suffix chu' is intended to refer more to the
degree of certainty of fact than to the manner in which the verb does its
verb thing. A Klingon would probably just say, "Dalqu' ghojmoHwI'vam", or
"QaQbe' ghojmoHwI'vam". Or even, "Dubbe'chugh ghojmoHwI'vam vIHoH".

     That's why Klingon classes rarely get boring. {{:)>

--   charghwI'

Back to archive top level