tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed May 31 10:16:14 1995
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Re: origin of the word {tlhIn...
- From: "Mark J. Reed" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: origin of the word {tlhIn...
- Date: Wed, 31 May 95 13:20:39 EDT
- In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 31 May 1995 12:26:35 -0400. <[email protected]>
[email protected] (Matt Gomes) writes:
\ qaghItlhneS:
\
\ :
\ : > toh! tlhIngan Hol DaghItlhnIS mu'thleghvam!
\ :
\ : "You need to write Klingon, this sentence."
\ :
\ : Perhaps you can say: mu'tlheghvam DaghItlhmeH tlhIngan Hol Dalo'nIS.
\ :
\ : > -m
\ :
\ : yoDtargh
\ :
\
\ Hmmm... I was TRYING to say "You need to write that sentence in Klingon".
\
\ I don't understand how to parse yoDtargh's sentence... toH! A little help?
"In order to write this sentence, you need to use Klingon."
mu'tlhegh+vam this sentence
Da+ghItlh+meH in order that you write it
tlhIngan Hol Klingon language
Da+lo'+nIS you need to use it
If you really meant "that" instead of "this", change the -vam to -vetlh.
Your original translation doesn't work because it lacks any connection between
"sentence" and "Klingon"; you just stuck both nouns out there without
any grammatical glue to hold them together. The English version has the
preposition "in" to make that connection, but "in" has a wide variety of
meanings in English, and we have no evidence that {-Daq} can function
similarly in tlhIngan Hol, so a literal translation is not possible.
Therefore you reword the English into a form that translates more
readily into Klingon, which is what yoDtargh did.
Concepts that are expressed with prepositions in English are often expressed
with adverbial clauses in Klingon, simply because Klingon, or at least our
lexicon, has a dearth of prepositions. It's just one more way that Klingon
thinking shifts the focus away from nouns (the object of the preposition)
to verbs (how are you relating to that object).
-marqoS
--
Mark J. Reed
Email: [email protected] - Voice: +1 404 315 6296 x158 - Fax: +1 404 315 0293
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