tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Nov 13 07:51:37 1995
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Re: jIlIH(')egh, etc.
>Date: Sat, 11 Nov 1995 13:32:47 -0800
>From: [email protected] ( "c.j.atherton-cj")
>chaq bIlugh 'ach *former Czechoslovakia* Sung SoSwI' vaj jIH QaH ;)
>(Vy mozhno byt' pravym, no mama cheshka, tak y menya preimushchestvo)
>I have a feeling that saying / vaj jIH QaH/ may be bad use of klingon but
>I couldn't think how else to say "thus, I am aided"... does "aided" here
>count as an adjective? While my understanding of grammar is improving as
>a result of studying both Klingon and Russian (not to mention esperanto),
>this isn't something I regularly run into :(
You're having a little trouble with your Russian influence :). First of
all, although in Russian there is no (written) copula, there *is* one in
Klingon. So "my mother is a native of former Czech." can't be written
"*f. C.* Sung SoSwI'"; that means "former C's native's my mother". You
need to say "*f. C.* Sung ghaH SoSwI''e'". Don't forget that "ghaH".
Your "*jIH QaH" doesn't work, I'm afraid. Think it through. "QaH" is used
here as a verb, meaning "to aid". But remember, it is a *conjugated*
form. What form? "QaH" means "he/she/it aids," "he/she/it aids
him/her/it/them," or "they aid them." So what is the "jIH" doing there?
It doesn't seem to fit. "QaH" always means aiding is happening in
third-person (both subject and object). What does "I am aided" mean? It
can be "that situation aids me," right? So how would you say that? Well,
here, "that situation" (which may be elided) is the subject, and "I" is the
object. So it's "it aids me" which is "muQaH": "muQaH [ghu'vetlh]".
Another way is to say "something unspecified aids me" using the "-lu'"
suffix. For reasons unknown (but guessed-at), when you use "-lu'", the
prefix used is different, and instead of "mu-" we need "vI-": "vIQaHlu'".
Get it?
You have to be careful with verbs; just because they're listed as
infinitives, don't forget that they're always conjugated with respect to a
particular subject and object whenever you use them in a sentence.
~mark
>> > Holmey muHoHlI'! HItoD!
>>
>> jIyajbe'. DuHoHlI' 'Iv?
>Holmey! (I'm confused... does this not translate?)
It does, but your word-order is wrong. What's the subject? The
languages. So they go *after* the verb. "muHoHlI' Holmey."
~mark