tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Apr 18 03:52:26 1994

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Re: Beginner's Qs, but may have wider interest...

On Apr 17,  4:10am, (Paul Mackie) wrote:
> In particular, I wanted the following:
> 1. "Klingon is not just a language, it is a way of life."

     Not an easy thing at all. I'd tend to drop back and punt, borrowing from
a Harley Davidson bumper sticker:

tlhIngan Hol: vIQIjnISchugh vaj DayajlaHbe'

     To get back to your original sentence, however, I'd try:

Hol neH 'oHbe' tlhIngan Hol
yInlIj He Dunob 'oH

"Klingon language is not only a language."
"It gives you your life's course."

Your attempt began: 
> I might start with: 
>                      Hol tlhInganbe' neH,
> but neH doesn't quite seem to fit here, or does it??

     {neH} is fine, but {tlhIngan} is not a verb, so it cannot take the
{-be'} suffix, and it is not the right word to preceed {neH}. In my version,
the verb is {'oH}, which is a pronoun used as a "to be" verb. You can't do
that with nouns. You can only do that with normal pronouns. You can't do it
with {'e'} or {net}.

     {neH} can follow either nouns or verbs. Here it is debatable whether it
should follow the first {Hol} or the verb {'oHbe'}. I reversed my first guess
on this. If it follows the verb, it then means "merely", belittling the
action of the verb. When it follows a noun, it marks the noun as an
exception, like the English "only". I decided that if it followed the verb,
it could be interpreted as "Klingon language merely is not a language."
Following the noun, it means "Klingon language is not a language only." The
{-be'} suffix makes this a little stranger than most canon uses and
explanations.

> As for "way of life",... 

     I interpreted this to mean "course", since "way" here means "path" of
sorts.
 
> 2: "Body and brain, human [or terran].
>     Heart and soul, tlhIngan."
> 
> This one's pretty easy, even for a beginner, but...
> I'll be damned if I can find a tlhIngan word meaning
> spirit or soul!!    

     As others will surely point out {qa'} was apparently used in Power
Klingon to refer to "spirit". The example referred to the spirit of Kahless.
Still, if I were writing this, I'd simplify it to "I have the body of a
terran, but I have the heart of a Klingon." The "and brain" and "and soul"
add little to the spirit of the statement.

There are several good ways to say this.

tera'ngan porgh vIghaj, 'ach tlhInganna' tIq vIghaj

Using a little poetic license:

tera'ngan porghwIjDaq yIntaH tlhInganna' tIqwIj

Using MORE poetic license:

tera'ngan vIrur 'ach tlhIngan 'Iw 'oH 'IwwIj

charghwI'

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