tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Mar 04 21:05:38 1994
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A little help, please...
- From: [email protected] (Mark E. Shoulson)
- Subject: A little help, please...
- Date: Fri, 4 Mar 1994 15:48:24 -0500
- In-Reply-To: "Coz"'s message of Fri, 4 Mar 94 02:52:25 MST <[email protected]>
>From: [email protected] ("Coz")
>Date: Fri, 4 Mar 94 02:52:25 MST
>I'm pretty new to this language, and, not knowing about this list when I
>bought TKD, the only thing I could think to do was record my telephone-
>answering machine message in thlingon. The message is as follows:
Well! That certainly takes some guts, and a certain amount of class to try
a Klingon answering machine message! One thing, though; when you post
here, try to use the standard orthography. The non-standard capitalization
you use is surprisingly jarring for so minor a change.
>"NuqneH?
>Wejvatlh loSmaH loS loSSaD wa'vatlh chorghmaH loS DarI'ta'.
>Yingu''egh 'ej jajvam yingu'chu' rep je tup.
Well, jajvam in this case actually works (most of the time people use it it
doesn't). But the last three words don't quite make it. "rep" and "tup"
are both nouns, and you correctly use the noun-joining conjunction "je"
(and not 'ej). However, when conjoining nouns, the conjunction comes
*after* the nouns, so "the hour and the minute" should be rendered "rep tup
je". The other problem is that I don't see how these fit into the rest of
the sentence. They're in the place that should be occupied by the subject,
only it's a command so the subject is presumably "SoH" (or possibly
"tlhIH"). Maybe "jajvam yIngu'chu'; rep tup je yIja'" or "jajvam rep tup
je yIgnu'chu'". We're not sure whether or not three nouns anded together
would be "N N je N je" or "N N N je" so presumably there'd be some
confusion as to whether this meant "Identify this day's hour and minute" or
"Identify this day, and the hour and minute". Luckily, in this case the
meanings are awfully close. Perhaps "poHvam" would be better for the
second meaning.
>HIja' Daqlij qoj HIja' QumwI'lijmI' 'ej HISovmoH De'lij.
Aww, you had the word-order so good before... But here you missed it. The
object comes first in Klingon, remember. So "Tell me your location" should
be "DaqlIj HIja'" (or "jIHvaD DaqlIj yIja'"), and similarly "QumwI'lIj mI'
HIja' 'ej De'lIj HISovmoH." Nice usage of "SovmoH" and "qoj".
>YIjatlhchu'.
Speak clearly... very important for Klimngon over the phone; this Terran
technology doesn't support some of the finer points of Klingon
pronunciation too well.
>DaH yiHeQ.
Yow....
>Have I used the language appropriately in this instance and how can I make
>the message a bit shorter?
See above for language corrections. As to shortening, well, it all depends
what you need to say. "nuqneH. DaH jIDach; DaqlIj QumwI'lIj mI' De'lIj
joq HIja'. yIjatlhchoH" could be an acceptable message, but it wouldn't
say all that you wanted. You could also make more minor changes, like
dropping the phrases about "your information". Or anything in between.
Oh, and an idea for you; consider the verb "qon", "to record". Might be
better than "HIja'", might not. Depends on the style you want.
>Coz
~mark