tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jul 29 09:06:36 1996
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Re: ponq Duj
- From: "Mark E. Shoulson" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: ponq Duj
- Date: Mon, 29 Jul 1996 12:06:10 -0400 (EDT)
- In-reply-to: <[email protected]> (message from Dixon onSun, 28 Jul 1996 12:47:38 -0700)
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>Date: Sun, 28 Jul 1996 12:47:38 -0700
>From: Dixon <[email protected]>
Since ghunchu'wI' seems to be a little swamped still, and the KLBC header
wasn't here to draw his attention...
>Duj tlhIngan ghaj pong
>do Klingon ships have names
Watch your word-order. "pong" is the object, right? It comes BEFORE the
verb. Do NOT translate word-for-word; no language works that way. So
think about the sentence. What is the subject? What does the having? The
ships, right? In Klingon, the subject comes after the verb, and the object
before it. How do you say "Klingon ships"? That's "Klingons' ships,"
right? We'll ignore plural markers for now, as you did, since they're
optional in Klingon. The order for possessives in Klingon is like the
order in English "'s" contructions. So "Klingons' ships" would be
"tlhIngan Duj." "pong ghaj tlhIngan Duj" means "Klingon ship(s) have
name(s)." You still need to mark it as a question. To mark a sentence as
a yes/no question, use "-'a'" on the *VERB* (note that it's a VERB suffix,
of no relation to the type-1 noun-suffix "-'a'" that looks the same.) So
it's "pong ghaj'a' tlhIngan Duj?"
>parHa' *USS Eterprise*'a'
>like USS ENTERPRISE
Ugh. "parHa'" is a verb, meaning "to like." Did you mean "The great USS
Enterprise likes"? No... Be careful. The word "like" in English has a lot
of meanings. Here, it's a preposition, not a verb. Klingon doesn't have
prepositions as such (tho its type-9 noun-suffixes work like them, but it
doesn't have many of those). Also note that you put -'a' on a noun, which
can't be for the questioning suffix, which goes on a verb. You can try
something like "*USS Enterprise* lurur'a'?" for "do they resemble the
Enterprise", but that's sort of odd. The English sentence is actually more
complex, come to think of it. It really means "Do they have names which
resemble "USS Enterprise"? That's more complicated, requiring a -bogh
clause and all; maybe you shouldn't try for that. You can do something
simpler (sort of See Spot Run) by saying "Do Klingon ships have names? The
USS Enterprise has (one)." (pong ghaj'a' tlhIngan Duj? ghaj *USS
Enterprise*.)
>bIpongchay chaH
>How do you name?
"chay'" is a word of its own, and an adverbial, which comes at the start of
the sentence. I think you're using "chaH" here for "them" as the object of
the sentence, in which case it needs to come before the verb. Moreover,
since ships aren't speaking entities, it should be bIH, not chaH. You're
really asking "how do you name them", and presumably you're asking all of
us, so you need the you-plural prefix. "chay' bIH bopong?" (note that the
"bIH" is optional). Do you see why?
>bortaS blr jablu'Dl'reH QaQqu'nay
It's hard to read the dictionary's phrase-list, since l's and I's look
alike. Besides, there are typos in that phrase. It's supposed to be:
bortaS bIr jablu'DI' reH QaQqu' nay'.
~mark
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