tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Feb 16 00:26:37 1994
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Beginners Unite!
- From: [email protected] (Mark E. Shoulson)
- Subject: Beginners Unite!
- Date: Wed, 16 Feb 1994 13:24:54 -0500
- In-Reply-To: Marnen Laibow-Koser 's message of Wed, 16 Feb 94 12:01:45 EST <[email protected]>
>From: [email protected] (Marnen Laibow-Koser )
>Date: Wed, 16 Feb 94 12:01:45 EST
>X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]
>Content-Length: 2143
>jatlh Matt Gomes:
>[headers]
>: qajatlhneS:
>:
>: We will start with the easy things and work up from there. If you're
>: interested in participating, please let me know (I'll try to coordinate
>: as best as possible). I also think we should use a FLA (Four Letter
>: Acronymn) like the Shakespear/Bible translators are using... if noone
>: has a big objection to KLBC (Klingon Language Beginner's Conversations),
>: I think that would do...
Ahem. The properly self-referential term for a four-letter-acronym is an
ETLA: Esxended Three-Letter-Acronym. :-)
>:
>: I also suggest to those beginners that you start memorizing vocab..
>: Start with the most popular words (learn, think, eat, say, write, book,
>: computer, book, paper, etc.) and move on from there. It's certainly
>: helped me...
>:
>: Shall we begin?
>:
>: --------
>majQa', <Matt>! qechvam viparHa'qu'chu'! biruchchugh vaj qangaqbej...
>:
>: thlIngan Hol jIghoj
>: DewI' jIghaj
>: DewI' bIghaj 'a'?
>...'ach bighojmoH 'e' biniDchugh, bilughniSbej. ('e' leng QatlhDaq vighojpu'.)
><computer> Damugh DaneHchugh, \De'wi'\ 'oHbej mu''e'; Qagh 'oH \Dewi'\'e'. 'ach
>qul qanob vineHbe'bej, 'ej qechvam Dalo' 'e' DaruchtaHviS, biDo'jaj 'e'
>vitulbej!
Marnen, were you listening? Did you see the Subject: header? It says
"Beginners". The whole point of this thread is that the people involved
are *not* major-league Klingon speakers. Correcting them in Klingon will
likely wind up as less than incredibly helpful. true, it's important to
give them some sentences to use as examples, but they'd be better served if
the sentences they *needed* to understand (namely, corrections) were
accessible to them.
Anyway. Marnen correctly corrects your misspelling of "De'wI'", since
"DewI'" isn't right. He does, however, miss a deeper error which you
should watch out for. Remember in Klingon that the prefix you add to a
verb (the conjugation) depends on its subjcet *and* its object. So "I have
a computer" has to have the prefix on "ghaj" which corresponds to a subject
of "I" and an object of "it". That prefix is "vI-", and not "jI-". "jI-"
is the prefix to be used when there is no object involved, like in "I
sleep"/"jIQong". Similarly "Do you have a computer" has to have the prefix
for "you"-subject and "it"-object, namely "Da-". Unless, of course, you're
addressing more than one person, where it might be more appropriate to use
the "you-plural"-subject, "it"-object (or "them"-object; conveniently they
are the same) prefix; "bo-". So:
De'wI' vIghaj.
De'wI' Daghaj'a'?
Would be a correct way to say it.
>:
>: -mat
>: [email protected]
~mark