tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Dec 15 12:10:22 1996

Back to archive top level

To this year's listing

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]

Dr. Okarnd Speaks -- lengthy

>Dr. Okrand

>verenganvaD bang HotmeH tlhIngan qIt 'e' DaQub'a'?
><Do you think it's possible for a Klingon to feel love for a Ferengi?>

>jarlIj qaq nuq?
><What is your favorite month?>

>I'll start out small.


*****   Dr. Okrand's response  ********

Here's "what I think" about the two sentences in your note.

But since this is a bulletin board, I'd be interested in seeing what people 
besides me think also.  So if anyone else has other thoughts on these or any 
future matters, please feel free to participate.  (No reason to wait for me to 
go first either.  And I'd also be interesting in seeing analyses that disagree 
with mine.)

Anyway, the two sentences you wrote raise some interesting points
about Klingon grammar, so they're a great place from which
to begin a discussion.

Taking them up in order:

(1) You suggested translating "Do you think it's possible
for a Klingon to feel love for a Ferengi?" as:

verenganvaD bang HotmeH tlhIngan qIt 'e' DaQub'a'?

The end of the sentence is fine.  The correct way to say
"Do you think that...?" is ... 'e' DaQub'a'? ('e' is
"that," referring to something that precedes it in the
sentence or in the discussion; DaQub'a' is "do you think
it?").

Then it gets a little murky -- mostly because you're
talking about a topic Klingons don't talk about much,
namely love.

First, the word HotmeH means "in order to feel," (Hot
"feel," -meH "in order to"), but Hot means "feel, touch,"
not "feel emotions."

Second, the word bang is indeed a noun meaning "love," but
it refers to the object of one's affection, that is,
"beloved one."  (In Star Trek III, Kruge refers to Valkris
as bangwI' "my love" in this sense.)

So we need another way to say "feel love" for your
sentence.  We do know that there is a Klingon word for
"love," meaning something like what we mean by the word.
It is parmaq. We heard this word for the first time in a
recent episode of Deep Space Nine where Dax says that
parmaq is "the Klingon word for 'love,' but with more
aggressive overtones."  She accuses Worf of having a "bad
case" of parmaq, which suggests it's a noun.  (The episode
is called "Looking for par'Mach in All the Wrong Places";
there may be a good historical reason for the Federation
choosing the spelling "par'Mach," but, regardless, the
pronunciation of the word is parmaq.)  Unfortunately, so
far, that's about all we know about the Klingon word for
"love."  I'll have to do some additional research to find
out how the word is used correctly in a sentence.  Since
it's Klingon love we're talking about here, I wouldn't be
surprised to learn that it doesn't work in at all the same
way as the Federation Standard word "love."  I'll get back
to you on this in the future.  Whether it's appropriate to
express "for a Ferengi" by using the noun suffix -vaD "for" 
awaits further research as well, since it depends on how
the verb used for "feel love" works.

Finally, you use the word qIt to mean "it's possible."  qIt
is a verb meaning "be possible."  In your sentence,
however, it's used in an odd way.  As you know, in Klingon,
objects precede the verb and subjects follow.  Since qIt is
a verb, what precedes it should be the object (here, "a
Klingon feels love for a Ferengi," regardless of how you
say that); what follows should be the subject.  But nothing
follows. ('e' DaQub'a' is something else, and 'e' is the
object of DaQub'a'.)  It's possible that the subject of qIt
is "it" (presumably 'oH) and that the pronoun is just not
uttered (not impossible); but what is "it"?  It has to
refer to something, but, in this case, it refers to
nothing, making the entire construct suspect.  I'd suggest
recasting the sentence by making use of the verb suffix
-laH 'can, able,' so it would mean something like "...a
Klingon is able to feel love for a Ferengi."  Of course,
until we know how to say "feel love" we don't know what to
attach the -laH to.

I realize this doesn't help much; it raises more questions
than it answers.  But when it comes to matters of the
heart...

(2) You suggested translating "What is your favorite
month?" as:

jarlIj qaq nuq?

This one's a little easier to deal with.  Your sentence
literally means "What is your preferable month?"  The basic
syntax is correct.  Question words (in this case, nuq
"what?") function the same way pronouns do in questions
with "to be" in the English translations.  Thus, the
question yIH nuq? "What is a tribble?" is exactly parallel
the statement yIH 'oH "It is a tribble" (where yIH is
"tribble" and 'oH is "it").  The answer to the question yIH
nuq? ("What is a tribble?") would presumably be a
definition or description of a tribble.  This being the
case, then, the answer to the question jarlIj qaq nuq?
("What is your preferable month?") would presumably be a
definition of "your favorite month." But this is not what
you want to find out by asking your question.  What you
really mean to ask is something like "Of all the months, which
one do you prefer?"

The first word in your sentence, jarlIj, means "your month"
(jar "month," -lIj "your").  But given that what you're
really asking is "Which month do you prefer?" it's not
really "your month" at all.  The "you" should go with the
verb, not with "month."

Which brings us to the verb.  You use qIb, "be preferable,"
adjectivally (jarlIj qIb is "your preferable month").  I
think what you mean is better expressed by using the verb
maS "prefer" with "you" as the subject: jar DamaS "you
prefer the month."  If you want to highlight the notion of
"most prefer," you can use the emphatic suffix -qu': jar
DamaSqu' "you very much prefer the month."  (In this case,
since "prefer" involves making a choice, the one chosen is
automatically the one that is "most" preferred.)

So what about the "what" (or "which") of your original
question ("What/which is your favorite month?")?  When
asking someone a question of this type, you are really
asking him or her to make a choice.  So just be a Klingon
and order them to do so: "Identify the month that you very
much prefer!":

jar DamaSqu'bogh yIngu' 

DamaSqu'bogh "that you very much prefer" (DamaSqu' "you
very much prefer it" plus -bogh "which," the
relative-clause marker) modifies jar "month" and the whole
phrase jar DamaSqu'bogh "the month that you very much
prefer" is the object of the verb ngu' ("identify"), which
is preceded by the imperative prefix yI- ("do something to
it!").

Given that there's an awful lot about Klingon grammar that's not yet known, 
you did a good job coming up with the translations you came up with.  I hope 
my explanations and clarifications make sense.

Qapla'!

  - Marc

Back to archive top level