tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Apr 22 17:57:26 1996

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Re: KLBC:Interesting times



nuqHm writes:
>"May you live in interesting times"

We've seen several alternative phrasings for this.

>A direct translation seemed out of the question, so I played with the word
>order and came
>up with...
>
>"Interesting times, you live (in them) - <COMMAND>"

This sure looks like you're actually going for a direct translation...
except that you changed it into the command "live in interesting times"
instead of a curse.

>poHlIj Daj 'e' yIyIn

"Live that your interesting time."  You didn't translate what you came
up with; I'm not sure *what* you translated!  {yIn} doesn't make a lot
of sense to me with an object, and the object you've given it is {'e'}
which is supposed to refer to the previous sentence, but what has come
before it is simply a noun phrase.  And why did you add {-lIj}?

>I am a little concerned about using Daj [interesting(v)] adjectivally,

You seem to have used it correctly.  Adjectival verbs follow the noun,
which is what you've done with {poHlIj Daj} "your interesting time".

>and I'm sure that the ['e'] construct is wrong !

Yep.  The big problem is that "live in a time" doesn't come out very well
in Klingon.  You might try "live while a time is occurring", or you might
choose one of the other suggestions with the word {wanI'}.

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




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