tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Dec 11 21:00:28 1994
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Re: KLBC: Blood calls for blood.
On Sun, 11 Dec 1994, Kevin A. Geiselman, Knight Errant wrote:
> I am a <tlhingan Hol> novice, yet am called upon by my comrades of the
> IKV Dark Justice as the Klingon language expert. In that capacity I need
> to correct their mistakes while still learning the basics myself.
> So, here's what I've gotten this week:
> "Blood calls for blood."
[...]
> <'Iw majachmeH 'Iw Suqmo'>
> "We call out for blood because they obtained blood."
> How did I do?
While I'll leave the critique of your translation to the Grammarians, I
just wanted to comment on your .sig.
> Lt.Cmdr. Kordite vestai-Tasighor
> Intelligence Officer, IKV Dark Justice, Klingon Assault Group
> qorDayt la'Hom (veStay-taSIghor)
> ghoqpIn, tlhwD ruv Hurgh, tlhingan ghom HIv
> (PS: how's this, too?)
(ghoqpIn) "Spyboss" is an interesting translation for "Intelligence
Officer". It would be particularly appropriate if your function was to
supervise spies, but you don't want to mix verbs and nouns this way. It
would be better to use {ghoqwI'pIn}. Variant translations you could use
are {De' boSbogh yaS} (officer which collects data) or "information
gathering officer;" or maybe {jagh tu'bogh yaS} "enemy observation officer".
(tlhwD ruv Hurgh) I assume "tlhwD" stands for {tlhIngan wo'
Duj}. This is fine, but you might want to use periods to indicate that
this is actually an abbreviation - tlh.w.D.
(tlhIngan ghom HIv) I know you wish to want to find something as
close as possible to "Klingon Assault Group", but this is bad. It clearly
means, "It (or they) attack the Klingon group." As you know, verbs can be
used as adjectives when they follow a noun. But this only seems to work
well when the verb is intransitive. If you want a transitive verb, like
{HIv}, to modify a noun, you would be understood better if you used a
{-bogh} construction. {HIvbogh tlhIngan ghom} would be less ambiguous.
Another variation you could use is {tlhIngan HIvwI' ghom} (Klingon Attacker
Group).
I hope this helps.
Qapla'
yoDtargh