tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Jan 28 06:52:02 1995
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Re: KLBC
According to Kay Tracy:
>
> KLBC, I am toying with sounds that make up my name, and I have come up with
> the following....Qe' tI reSay (Resteraunt vegitarian, we excite you!) ?
Not really. You seem to be addressing the restaurant's
vegetation rather than anyone eating it. Also, without {-moH}
the prefix on {reSay} doesn't make much sense. Sorry this
doesn't fit the poetic priorities of fitting your name. Nice
try, though.
> Although my personal eating habits have been mentioned in the same sentance as
> certain tlIngan activities,
> perwIj jInejqa
Think about the prefix here. You have an object, right? Except
for using the wrong prefix, this is a good sentence.
> nuq'a' Quchvam 'e' not Say'moHlu'
> Hopefully I said "What? will this forehead never be clean?
{nuq} is a question word that fits in a sentence where a noun
would fit. It can't take a verb suffix, and a sentence with
{nuq} does not need the verb suffix {-'a'} to make it a
question.
This is a good point to bring up for beginners, anyway, so:
How do you make a question in Klingon?
There are several ways. You can take a normal statement and add
the suffix {-'a'} to the verb. {Dayaj} "You understand it,"
becomes {Dayaj'a'?} "Do you understand it?"
You can take a normal statement and follow it with the word
{qar'a'}, as in {Dayaj qar'a'?} "You understand it, right?"
You can take a normal statement and replace one of the nouns
with the question words {nuq} or {'Iv}. {yIH DaHoHta'} "You
have killed a tribble," becomes {nuq DaHoHta'} "You have killed
a WHAT?" or "What have you killed?". {jabbI'ID mulab Holtej}
"Holtej sent me a message," becomes {jabbI'ID mulab 'Iv} "Who
sent me a message?"
You can take a normal statement and follow one of the nouns
with {'ar}. {nIn wIghaj} "We have fuel," becomes {nIn 'ar
wIghaj} "How much fuel do we have?"
You can take a normal statement and preceed it (as you would
with an adverbial) with qatlh, ghorgh or nuqDaq. {bISop} "You
eat," becomes {qatlh bISop} "Why do you eat?" {ghorgh bISop}
"When do you eat?" or {nuqDaq bISop} "Where do you eat?"
Notice the difference between these and {nuq DaSop}. Here,
{nuq} is acting like a noun, so the verb has an object and the
prefix needs to reflect that. The the adverbial-like question
words will NOT act like a subject or an object.
Notice here that I am calling {ghorgh} and {nuqDaq}
adverbial-like when they really have to do with time stamps and
locatives, but I don't really care to get into that right now.
The point is, qatlh, ghorgh and nuqDaq belong at the beginning
of a sentence and they do NOT act as object of the verb in any
normal situation.
> Qe' (Kay) Tracy
Note that if you are really looking for a sound-alike, {qey'}
would probably come closer (and would be less confusing, since
people wouldn't think you were a restaurant). Of course,
whenever Okrand gets around to assigning that syllable to a
word, you take what he gives you...
charghwI'
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