tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Aug 05 22:45:15 1994

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Re: Have a nice day.



> For "Have a nice Day", why not "DaHjaj DatIv" or "DaHjaj yItIv"?

When I said "I won't even suggest it," I was hoping to point out that 
it's a very un-Klingon sort of thing to say.  If I said one of your 
two suggestions above to a Klingon, how do you suppose he'd react?  
And how do you suppose I'd get my remains back to my family?

> On a similar note, here's a thlingon joke:
> 
> tlhingan tlhob tera'gnan
> "'DaHjaj DatIv' vIjatlh'a'"
> tera'gnan jang tlhingan
> "DaH HIHoH"
> 
> What I'm shooting for here is to formalize the thread that's been going on
> this.  But I'm having a great deal of trouble grasping sentence structure.
> Help! 

Fear not, that's what we're here for!  First of all, if you've been 
following at all the discussion between ~mark and charghwI' for the 
past couple of days, and if I'm not completely mucking it up, you'd 
remember that tlhIngan Hol doesn't have direct quotes.  In PK, Okrand 
uses different voices in his presentation of a joke like this, but who 
knows how he'd write it!  I'd look to TKD 6.2.5, where Okrand informs 
us that with verbs of saying, no sentence proform is used (i.e., 'e' 
or net).  I would re-word and simplify as follows:

chay' "DaHjaj yItIv" jatlhlu' tlhob tera'ngan
"DaH HIHoH" jang tlhIngan

Notice that even though I've set off the question and answer in 
quotes, they still fit naturally into their places in the sentence, as 
far as syntax is concerned.  The quotes are for ease of reading, as is 
any punctuation one uses with tlhIngan Hol.

~mark, did I completely screw this up?

And KoSneH, if you're having such trouble with basic grammar, the best 
advice I can give is to go through the dictionary (grammar parts) a 
coupld of times, and read everything that comes across this list in 
Klingon!  At the FTP site there are several longer texts, and when you 
feel comfortable, pick one out and give it a try.  Meanwhile, mark 
your posts to the list as a part of the KLBC, and we'll work through 
your grammar woes together.

> KoSneH

--Holtej



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