tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Dec 04 15:33:55 1996

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Re: Why bother with pong?




T::>>>*'orqut* jIH
 ::>>*'orqut* nuq?
 ::>>What's an 'orqut? What species is that?
 ::>>"I am an 'orqut" or "I am 'orqut", etc.....
 ::>>
 ::>It works in other languages.
 ::>"Hello, I'm Roger.

 ...to which the obvious immediate response is "Klingon isn't
 other languages".

 Different languages will have different constructs, which may
 appear idiomatic to those unfamiliar with the language.  For
 example, if I correctly remember the vague memories of having
 attempted to learn Hebrew once in my youth, you can't say "I
 have ..."; the literal translation of the Hebrew that one uses
 in such a context is "To me there is ..."

 Klingon has its own grammar and constructs; it is not simply an
 encoding for English.  Idiomatic constructs that work in
 English may be meaningless in Klingon.  Don't try to translate
 English or English constructs into Klingon; try to think in
 Klingon.

 That said, I have a question for the list at large - does
 <<yIngachuqegh>> mean what I think it means, and is it as
 insulting in Klingon as what I think it means is in English?
 And no, I'm not using it to anyone here - someone used it to me
 today, and I want to make sure I understand it properly before
 I go back and lay him out good.

==========================================================================
Jeff Zeitlin                                      [email protected]
---
 � OLXWin 1.00b � (c) 1991 by the Great-Compu-Guru Society (tm)


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