tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Oct 15 08:19:51 1995
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Re: DS9 - Today is a good day to die.
According to Craig Altenburg:
>
> On the season premier of DS9 the was some tlhIngan Hol that Worf translated
> as "Today is a good day to die." Does anyone know what was said?
>
> Qeygh
Well, we now know that Okrand did not have anything to do with
this script, so we know that there is a limit to how seriously
we should take it. Second, the actor who spoke it seemed quite
tense and self-conscious, like "God, I hope I get this right."
I only saw this once (have not had a chance to go over it
again) and missed the first word, though others have indicated
it was something close to {HeghmeH}. The next three words were
clearly {jajvam jaj QaQ}. In all, the actor spat out the words
quickly with a LOT of space between them, except for the last
two words which were run together:
HeghmeH... jajvam... jajQaQ
Meanwhile, this is a really lousey translation of the English
"This is a good day to die." First of all, we have no Okrand
sanctioned use of a locative concept like {-vam} on a temporal
word like {jaj}. It should almost certainly be {DaHjaj} instead
of {jajvam}.
Secondly, this so called sentence has no verb. The verb one
presumes they mistakenly intended to use was {'oH}, in which
case {jajQaQ} should have been {jaj QaQ'e'}.
I personally think "this day" and "good day" are too idiomatic
to English to pack into one cluster of words and call it a
Klingon sentence. It is a bad example poorly rendered. The
script writer should be publicly flogged and then forced to
repeat the Rite of Ascension (as if the coward ever did it the
first time).
charghwI'
--
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"> | Get a grip.
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