tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Sep 04 21:57:02 1996

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Re: KLBC: Klingon poem

At 09:10 AM 8/30/96 -0700, [email protected] wrote:


Looking back at the post I originally responded to, this was originally
written by Laurel Beckley <[email protected]>.

I suspect that, rather than go back to the original post, and re-post her
Klingon as a quotation, you attempted to back-translate her story from the
English provided.  Unfortunately, you didn't do as good a job as she did.
{{:)  That's okay, though... I think you were trying to use this as a
learning experience... so...

Let's take a look....

Most of your grammar is pretty good, either because you remembered the
original (it never hurts to remember a good, grammatically-correct phrase as
an example to model your phrases--if I remember correctly, this is a trick
~mark uses...)


>yotlhDaq Qam Du'wI'


To start with, your sentence means "my (speech-capable) farm stands in a field".

This is a really common error to make... but... there are TWO suffixes -wI'.

The NOUN suffix -wI' means "my (speech-capable)".  <jupwI'>--"my friend"...
as opposed to <targhwIj>, "my targ".  My friend is caoable of clear and
intelligible speach.  My targ, no matter how well I train it, is just a
targh, and cannot express complicated concempts with its "voice".

The VERB suffix -wI' means "one who does/thing which does <verb it is
attached to>."  This is the meaning most people remember for -wI', because
it very closely relates to the English suffix -er, which does pretty much
the exact same thing.

Unfortunately, the mistake most people make is to look up a word, and then
they fail to check to see if it is a noun or a verb... and pop -wI' on it,
completely forgetting that it has a totally seperate meaning...

In order to have the "one who does/thing which does" meaning, you HAVE to
use a VERB.

Usually people make this mistake only where there is only the noun entered
in the KD... but in this case...

...you *really* meant to say <wIjwI'>, qar'a'?  {{:)


>ghopDaq betleHDaj qeng
>tIrDaj legh
>tIrDaj pe' betleHDaj


While grammatically correct, this isn't what the original person said; you
lost some from what was translated from the original Klingon.


>Du'wI' ghoSchoH SuvwI'
>"bISuvbe'"
>"tIr pe'lI' betleHlI'"


I wasn't aware that a betleH could speak.  {{:)

Please note that for most (but not all!) possessive suffixes come in two
flavours:  speech-capable, and not-speech-capable.  Usually, the ones that
end in ' are the speech-flavoured variety... which is incorrect on a betleH,
which cannot speak (except metaphorically).


>bIjatlh SuvwI'


"You, the warrior, speaks".

I think you have the wrong prefix here.  bI- means "you, with no object".
You have a third-person subject, not "you":  the warrior, which would be
nothing.  The bI- can go.


>bIjatlhbe' Du'wI'


Same thing here.


>tIrDaj pe' Du'wI'
>bIHagh SuvwI'


"You, the warrior, are laughing".  This is really odd, as you seem to have
your prefixes correct elsewhere...


>"veren Dajeybe'"


"You don't defeat a <veren> (whatever a ?veren? might be...)".

This is one of those places you have your prefix correct.  Unfortunately, I
think you tried to short-cut typing all of <verengan>, and even sliced the
ng in the middle in half!  {{:(  It might be useful to think of all those
"long" characters as ONE character... after all, in pIqaD, they ARE one
character... we just represent them with more than one, because we don't
have anything comparable...

Also, the original was "You *cannot* defeat..."  You need a -laH in there:

        verengan DajeylaHbe'


>bIjatlhqa' SuvwI'


Same problem with prefixes... what is the bI- doing there???


>SuvwI' HIv Du'wI'
>suvta'


capItalS.  {{:)

This really means, "they had (intentionally) fought"... ie, they had fought
before, in the past of this story.  I don't believe that this is what the
original poster had in mind.  {{:)


>Hegh bIH SuvwI'


Unfortunately, I'm not even sure WHAT this translates to... <bIH> doesn't
belong in there at all, as it is a pronoun which means "multiple items not
capable of speech".  You only have one warrior here, and he is dying,
true... but what does <bIH> have to do with it?


>tIrDaj pe' Du'wI


>
>I think it's clear, what do you think?


Other than the comments I mentioned above, yes. {{:)


>Qapla'
>beHwI"av


--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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