tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Aug 31 22:01:56 1994

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Re: Klingon music



>From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
>Date: Wed, 31 Aug 94 15:11:51 EDT

>According to Mark E. Shoulson:
>> 
>> Hee.  I've so gotten to like that construction that charghwI' hates that
>> I'd almost rather see "nonlaw'lu'"...
>> 
>> ~mark

>Maybe I'm getting soft in my old age. Right now, I'm having
>difficulty managing the passionate objection I apparently
>voiced recently. I do believe that Okrand should clear this up,
>all the same.

It might be that your energies are unconsciously sapped by the internal,
subconscious struggle with the fact that I misordered the suffixes.  It
should be "nonlu'law'".  Hagh qoHpu' neH HeghtaHvIS SuvwI'pu'.

Now.  Here's a little lesson in how I discovered this, so you can get a
little idea into the workings of my mind.  This isn't to warn you about
going in there alone, but rather as an attempt to address the question of
"How did you learn Klingon?" which has been asked.

I didn't catch this by looking it up, but from my own knowledge (just a
little too late).  As it happens, I have a very good memory for things that
I hear (Krankor the Encore-player will attest to this).  I am good at
repeating words and phrases which I hear.  So hearing sentences is really
the best way for me to learn, since they kick around in my skull as
reference data.  There's a sentence in CK, where the Terran is saying
"There is food all over my face," which comes out as (by my memory)
"qabwIjDaq Soj tu'lu'bej."  Now, there's a "-lu'" there, and an "-bej",
which is the counterpart to "-law'" and so must be (and is) in the same
suffix class.  And the "-bej" comes second.  So "nonlu'law'" has to come in
that order.

That's what helps me: familiar sentences.  They helped me with prefixes (I
know "pI-" from "pIpIH"/"we're expecting you" in CK at the hotel, "nI-"
from a line I wrote once), etc...  Your mileage may vary.

~mark



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