tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Dec 15 13:06:51 1996
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RE: Dr. Okarnd Speaks -- lengthy
- From: "d'Armond Speers" <[email protected]>
- Subject: RE: Dr. Okarnd Speaks -- lengthy
- Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 16:08:34 -0500
- Encoding: 82 TEXT
On Sunday, December 15, 1996 3:27 PM, Kenneth Traft[SMTP:[email protected]]
wrote:
Marc Okrandvo': (!!!)
> 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'?
[...]
> First, the word HotmeH means "in order to feel," (Hot
> "feel," -meH "in order to"), but Hot means "feel, touch,"
> not "feel emotions."
No surprise there...
> 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.)
Unless we're talking about touching someone's loved one for the benefit of
a Ferengi... Talk about sentences that'll get you killed on Kronos!
> 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.
Yeah! Canon!
Although I wish it didn't come to us by way of Okrand's cleaning up after
some random writer at Paramount. But still, here it is. And, it's
decidedly a Klingon 'love,' not a Terran 'love.'
> 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.
No existential (pleonastic) use of "it." Though one wonders about
/qay'be'/ in the same light.
> (2) You suggested translating "What is your favorite
> month?" as:
>
> jarlIj qaq nuq?
[...]
> 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'
Wow, charghwI', you're right again (modulo /wIv/ for /ngu'/). We see
Okrand recast his way around "what X", suggesting it's something we can't
directly do in Klingon.
> Qapla'!
>
> - Marc
--Holtej
Stardate 96957.91