tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Sep 01 16:05:21 1996

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Re: KLBC: Hurrah!


>Argh--I know I've always had a problem with <'e'> (among other 
>things) and probably always will. Help me, please, HoD trI'Qal.


I will help you as best I can. {{:)

(It should be trI'Qal HoD... don't feel bad... I forget to... I actaully
prefer HoD trI'Qal, but the BG has to teach proper tlhIngan Hol as best they
can...)


>DuSaQ luchegh puqpu'wI'


Well, this is a nice first attempt...

What you have said here, literally is "My children return the school".  It
sounds like they borrowed it, and are just now returning it.  {{:)

When you are talking about moving about a physical location, and you want to
say "I am going TO someplace", or some sort of physical motion, you can use
-Daq on the noun to show that you are going "to" there:

        ?DuSaQDaq checg puqpu'wI'?

I put ??s around this, because I just *know* that the other grammarians are
gonna jump on me, and say that "going to school" is idomatic, and you can't
use -Daq there, even though I doubt that your children "go to school" in
your home.  So before either of them say anything (I'm not gonna mention
names, ~mark and charghwI' {{:) {{:) ), I am going to suggest to you that
you re-cast this.  How about, "My children resume studying at their school":

        DuSaQDajDaq HaDqa' puqpu'wI'

Please note that I still used -Daq to show that they were doing this at/in
(the location of) their school.


>chol poH 'e'


I can see you are having a trouble with <'e'> {{:).

What's really unfortunate here, is that you are using an English-speaker's
trick, of using "that" to mean the previous sentence... and then putting the
word "that" whereever it seems appropriate.  Then, when you try to translate
it into Klingon, you get ALL confused, because although Klingon has a word
for "that" (referring to the previous sentence), it has a VERY strict use:
it can ONLY be the object of one sentence, with the sentence it is referring
to right before it.  Let me give you an example:

        naDev bISaH 'e' vIlegh
        "I see (that) you are present here."

You can break this sentence down into two other sentences:

        naDev bISaH; 'e' vIlegh
        "You are present here; I see that."

This second example might make the use of <'e'> a bit clearer.  The first
part is the sentence "You are here".  It is a sentence, complete and whole
unto itself:  it has a subject and a predicate (verb, for the non-linguists
{{:) ).

This whole sentence just happens to tbe the OBJECT of the NEXT sentence "I
see that".  In English, we indicate this with the word "that".  In Klingon,
it is done with the pronoun <'e'>.  As I mentioned before, we can ONLY use
<'e'> in the OBJECT position of that second sentence.

In your example, you were trying to use <'e'> first as a modifier of the
word "time", and, to "add insult to injury" (to poor, misunderstood <'e'>
{{:) ), you tried to use it to modify the SUBJECT of the next sentence.

Fortunately, there is a way around this... you can use one of the words like
<wanI'>, <ghu'>, and a few others I can't rememeber (but I am SURE someone
will point out for us...).  In this case, you can use <wanI'> ("event,
occurance"):

        ?chol wanI' poH?
        "The time of this event is drawing near."

I put ??s around this, because this, too, may be "idiomatic" (in fact, I am
pretty sure it is).  I'm not sure if the idea of a "time approaching" is not
something found just in English, or if it is "global".  I would suggest
re-casting this to "Soon this event will occur":

        tugh qaS wanI'vam

Please note that I used the noun suffix -vam on <wanI'> to mean "this
event".  There is a corresponding suffix, -vetlh, which means "that".
Possibly, -vetlh could have been used instead of -vam.


>tlhIngan Hol vIHaDqa'


This sentence is grammatically correct!  majQa'!


>chol poh 'e'


This is the exact same sentence as before, with the same problems.  I hope I
explained this clearly enough above... I never know until I get another post
from you!


>My children will return to school.
>The time is draws near.
>
>I will resume studying Klingon.
>The time draws near.
>
>Is there anything like the exclamation "Yes!" (accompanying fist 
>being drawn down is optional)? Somehow a simple <lu'> or 
><majQa'> doesn't seem to express the depths of my happiness at 
>these two events.


HIja'?
luq, instead of lu'

I'd suggest Woo-Hoo!, but that isn't exactly Klingon... {{:)


>~Doq 


--tQ


---
HoD trI'Qal, tlhIngan wo' Duj lIy So' ra'wI'
Captain T'rkal, Commander IKV Hidden Comet
Klingon speaker and net junkie!
HaghtaHbogh tlhIngan yIvoqQo'!  toH... qatlh HaghtaH Qanqor HoD???
monlI'bogh tlhInganbe' yIvoqQo'!  SoHvaD monlI' trI'Qal...

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