tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Oct 27 09:48:35 1994

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Re: Nonexistent words ...?



>From: [email protected]
>Cc: [email protected] (u06rmm)
>Date: Thu, 27 Oct 1994 15:11:00 +0000 (GMT)

>[Sorry about that... glitch with MicroEmacs...]

>Klingon words required....

Hmmm... Generally speaking, when you're translating (into anything),
looking for "A word that means this" is the wrong approach.  Languages
aren't just fill-in-the-blanks where you just plug in the right verbiage
and it works.  Otherwise you could see someone doing a translation into
French and asking for a word for "old", and getting "vieux", and making a
sentence "Je suis vingt-six ans vieux" (a literal translation of "I am 26
years old" and very bad French).  It's even worse with Klingoin, which is
very unlike English and also has a small vocabulary, amnd is unlikely to
have a word that translates to what you want at all.  Give us the
*sentences* and the *concepts* and we'llsee if we can translate
them--translate, as in recast and restate, not just mechanically plug words
in that don't fit.

In the meantime, let's see what can be done with your list....

>Go forwards (v)

ghoS will often word... I suppose 'etDaq ghoS maybe...

>"As a result,...."

toH or vaj or wanI'vammo' or ghu'vammo', depending on the context.

>Behind

Something with "'o'Daq'", but Klingon has no simple preposition for this,
remember.

>Correctly (adv)

Use the -chu' verb suffix.

>Dimension(n)

Word of too many meanings to guess at.  Or at least the simple meanings
would require recasts, not just a word.

>Do (v)

Maybe ta' or vang or a million other possibilities.

>Equally (adv)

Recast using rur or rap.

>Evaluate (v)

Something with noH.

>Exceed (v)

Perhaps something with juS, or the -qu' suffix somewhere, or a law'/puS
construction.

>Finish (v)

Possibly rInmoH, depending on the context.

>Future (n)

No simple word.  Needs recast.

>Wormhole (n)

Was there a term for this in the SkyBox cards?  probably something with
lojmIt.

>Imagine (v)

naj?

>Involve (v)

jeSmoH?  muvmoH?

>Light year (n)

Your guess is as good as mine.  You'd need to rephrase, probably; any
compound you came up with would be a hindsight-word (only makes sense one
you know it already)

>Lightspeed (n)

You can use gho'Do in a law'/puS perhaps...

>Massive, be massive (v)

'ugh, maybe?

>Method (n)

mIw

>More (adv)

Use law'/puS construction, perhaps.

>Near (adv)

None that I know of.

>Paradox (n)

Nor this.  You'd have to describe it.  Maybe "qItlaHbe'law'bogh ghu'"?

>Past (n)

recast.

>Physics (n) [as in "Laws of physics"]

recast

>Previously (adv)

Something with "-pa'"; maybe qaSpa'?

and so on... I'm not being very helpful to either of us trying to attack it
this way.

~mark



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