tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Nov 28 21:38:51 1995

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Re: A test (cha'logh jIjang)

[maH chaHbogh maHbe']

charghwI' writes:
>The Klingon mind wants to see something happen. What exactly is happening
>in your sentence? What purpose or mission is being served? Where is honor?
>Why would any Klingon bother with those three words? It is as bad as "taH
>pagh taHbe'", which is the worst thing Okrand ever wrote.

taghqIj writes:
>Does this mean the Klingon mind has no capacity for extending itself?

Just what would you have it extend itself to?  You have put together a
very strange "sentence" here; where do you intend it to go?  What does
it mean?  I don't want to know what its English translation is, I want
to know what you mean by it.

>The
>original sentence in English, 'We are not who we are', was not
>particularly nice, but that did not make it a bad sentence.

"Not particularly nice" is an understatement!  Actually, I believe that
"we are not who we are" IS a bad sentence.  It contradicts itself, thus
it has no useful meaning.  I repeat my original question, but this time
in English:  Why the $#@ would you want to write such a weird sentence?
I can see no use for it.  Again, what does it mean?

>I refuse to
>believe that Klingons are so intellectually bankrupt as to disallow any
>deviation from their established language. The language of the warrior
>must be flexible. Combat situations are anything but staid. And if the
>language must be used in odd or ugly ways to say unusual things, then so
>be it.

I don't see your point.  What deviations are you referring to?  Where
is the inflexibility to which you allude?  Your sentence is certainly
odd, and what you are trying to say is certainly unusual, but I still
don't know what you MEAN by what you're trying to say.  You have lost
the whole point of language: communication.  If the words come out so
unusual as to be difficult to understand, then choose different words.

>> begin 600 WINMAIL.DAT
>> M>)\^(@P-`0:0" `$```````!``$``0>0!@`(````Y 0```````#H``$-@ 0`
>..
>> <[\.7O;H!'@`]``$````%````4D4Z( `````/GP`'
>
>What the hell is -this-, by the way? :)

Perhaps charghwI' has had his email system invaded by nanites? :-)
(Seriously, Will, you should get this annoying behavior fixed.)

>jIbelbe'. ngong tlhInganpu' chu'  ghItlhtaHvIS 'e' bochaw'qangHa'chugh,
>Heghpu' Holvam. mu'tlheghmey motlhbe' vIghItlhmeH tera'ngan Hol
>vIlo'nIS'a'? tera'ngan Hol lI' law' tlhIngan Hol lI' puS 'e' bochID'a'?

Duyaj vay' DaneHchugh mu'tlheghmey motlh DaghItlhnIS.
mu'tlhegh Dal DaghItlhnISbe'.  mu'tlhegh val DaghItlhlaH.
mu'tlhegh 'IH DaghItlhlaH.  'ach mu'tlhegh taQ yIghItlhQo'.
mu'tlheghlIj taQ vIyajlaHbe'chugh munuQ neH mu'tlheghvetlh.

>[That second sentence is a little convoluted. What I wanted to say was:
>'If you are not (mis-, more than just <be'>) willing to allow that new
>Klingons experiment while writing, the language has died (already)]

I don't think this was convoluted at all; you expressed that extremely
well.  However, you may not apply {-Ha'} to a suffix.  I quote TKD 4.3:

   "It is interesting that {-Ha'} always occurs right after the verb.
    It is not known why Klingon grammarians insist on calling it a
    rover.  It was felt best not to argue with Klingon tradition,
    however, so {-Ha'} is classified as a rover."

-- ghunchu'wI'               batlh Suvchugh vaj batlh SovchoH vaj

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