tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Sep 28 08:59:00 1996

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(KLBC) Re: tlhIngan Hol chu' ghojwI'. jIH ghaj pung.

Hi, I'm trI'Qal, your local Beginner's Grammarian.  {{:)  I'm here to answer
any of your questions and help you with your basic grammar.  Please feel
free to ask me anything you would like to know about Klingon.

Please also note that I have changed your subject line a bit.  The reason
for this will be sent to you in a private letter right after this one.

Now, for your posting...

I'm going to start with your subject line, before I forget it, as I think I
have done with a few others:

        tlhIngan Hol chu' ghojwI'. jIH ghaj pung.

Your first sentence isn't really a sentence.  It looks like you put the . in
the wrong place, actually, and the <jIH> at the beginning of the second
sentence really belongs at the end of the first.  Even then, you would be
saying "I am a student of new Klingon".  Without the <jIH> in there, you are
saying "the student of new Klingon".  A verb used as an adjective has to
*follow* the noun it is modifying, so your first sentence really should be:

        tlhIngan Hol ghojwI' chu' jIH.
        "I am an new student of Klingon."

A stylistic note:  while this is grammatically correct, it is considered by
some to be poor usage to turn a verb into a noun with either -wI' or -ghach
(your word <ghojwI'>) and then use it in the "to be" structure; it is
generally better to use your verbs as VERBS.  For example, I would have
stated your sentence as:

        tlhIngan Hol vIghojchoH neH.
        "I am just starting to learn Klingon."

This uses your verb as a verb, and is just as clear as your original.
Please note that the way you did it is grammatically acceptable; this is
just a comment on style.

Looking at your second sentence, I think you are trying to say "have mercy".
I'm not sure if "having" mercy is idiomatic or not; I would suspect it is.
Hopefully, one of the people who know better than I will look at this, and
make a comment one way or the other.  In the meanwhile, I will treat this as
if it were okay...

First, you have "mercy" in the wrong place.  In the sentence "have mercy!",
the OBJECT os "mercy", so it has to go before the verb:

        pung ghaj

This still is not quite right (although better).  If you are ordering those
who reply to this to have mercy, that is a command.  Commands use the
imperative prefix set on page 34 of your Klingon Dictionary.  You are
commanding plural "you" (all the people on the list!) with an object, so you
would use yI-:

        pung yIghaj
        "Have mercy"


At 05:47 AM 9/3/96 -0700, Mitchell Ross wrote:
>Hello all, this is my first post to this list. A fairly recent
>newspaper comic, "PC and Pixel" had a good one lately.  Having
>started my quest of tlhIngan Hol a couple weeks ago, I decided 
>to restore the comic to Klingon. 


Careful about this.  I generally don't recommend that you start trying to
translate what someone else wrote in English to Klingon as your first
attempt.  Why?  Because you will invariably come across an idea, or several
ideas which you cannot translate yet.  As you do so, you will think of a way
to do it... which may be hard for others to understand (or is grammatically
incorect).  If others can't understand you, then what's the point...?


>Setting is a cat looking at a mouse. The mouse starts...
>
>M: nuq qay'lIj?


In English, we regularly just use a verb as a noun (or vice versa!) as we
please, because English allows for nominalization of verbs, and vice vera.
However, Klingon is not so forgiving.  <qay'> is a verb, not a noun, and it
cannot be used as a noun (unless we hear from Okrand saying it can).  This
is one reason why I do not recommend that you translate someone else's words
to start.  The only way I know of to translate this concept is to re-cast
(one of your most useful tools!) the original English to use the verb <qay'>
as a VERB: 

        SoHvaD qay' nuq?
        "What is a problem for you?"

This may or may not be idiomatic; the expression "What's your problem?"
sounds like slang to me, but I could be wrong.


>C: "Cat" jIH.  "Mouse" SoH.  majaghqu'.


The first two sentences are fine.

Again, you cannot take a noun and turn it into a verb, as you have done here
with <jagh>.  You would have to make a statment similar to the previous ones
to say you are enemies:

        jaghpu' maH.
        "We are enemies."

If you wanted to really emphasize the fact that you were enemies, as you
seemed to be trying to do with -qu', you could say:

        jaghpu'na' maH.
        "We are defintely enemies."


>M: QI'yah.  jIpo' chamwI'.


Well, <QI'yaH> doesn't precisely mean "I beg your pardon", but it's a NICE
re-cast.  You might actually do better to use <ghuy'cha'> though, as we know
from the tapes that it is an expression that you would use if you "received
an unsettling communice'".  It looks like you are trying to say "I am a
skilled technician" in this next part; it's very hard to tell, because when
you translated to Klingon, you have obviously left out large chunks of the
"original" English (another reason why not to translate someone else's
words!).  If that is what you are trying to do, again, you need to have the
adjective-verb after the noun... not as the main verb in the sentence.  What
you have here is really "I am skillful, technician", like you are talking to
a technician.  There is no connection between yourself, and the concept of a
technician.  To do that, you would have to say:

        chamwI' jIH.
        "I am a technician."

To say that you are a SKILLED technician, you need to follow the word
<chamwI'> with the verb "to be skilled", <po'>"

        chamwI' po' jIH.
        "I am a skilled technician."


>M: bIQIp De'pIn.  De'Pin puj SoH.  chowuvmeH QapHom.


This first sentence looks like the exact same problem as above, assuming you
are trying to say "You are a stupd user".  I would not use "Databoss" for
user... how about <De'wI' lo'wI'> ("One who uses a computer")?

The last sentence is not a complete sentence, and makes no sense to me
whatsoever, even with the English you provided.  It translates to "The
<diminished> success in order that you depend on me"  See?  That is not a
complete thought in english, and is just as incomplete in Klingon as it is
in English.  Unfortunately, because of the "chunks" of English you did not
attempt to translate, I can't begin to make corrections to this.


>C: HIja'.  majaghpu'.


This is the same error as above.


>-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-
>
>M: What's your problem?
>C: I'm a cat and you're a mouse.  We're mortal enemies.
>M: I beg your pardon? I am a technically adept and binary fluent
>   computer expert.
>M: You are merely a computer user, dependent on guys like me to
>   perform even the simplest of functions.
>C: Like I said, we're mortal enemies.


Overall, this was a good attempt; you are very consistent in your errors,
which I view as a good thing:  it means that you are trying to apply a
method, and you are using the same method/thinking.  Unfortunately, yours
isn't quite right yet. {{:)


>-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-
>
>At first I wanted to do "cat" as "Qat" and mouse as "mo'S", but I
>hear that English may be a better choice here.


As you will see in my next letter, transliterations are a "no-no".  Why?
Because I would have seen <Qat>, and asked what being popular had to do with
your transation.  ?mo'S? would have REALLY thrown me, as it doesn't even
follow the apparent letter-combination patterns we have observed in Klingon
(which is not to say that it is not "correct", but i know *I* would not be
able to pronounce it...), and I would ask you if you left out a few letters,
or something.

As a general rule/advice, WHILE YOU ARE LEARNING, don't transliterate--just
pop the English word in where you would expect it, putting ""'s or *'s or
something around it so that we know right away that it is not a Klingon
word.  This will help you strengthen your basic grammar, because you are no
longer pondering how to transliterate a given word, or even if you should
transliterate it at al--you focus on your *grammar*.


>I had a hard time
>with "computer user".  A computer is that which uses data, and a 
>user is that which uses a computer.  I really wanted to use 
>"De'wI'wI'", which is jibberish.  Comments?


Well, please note that there IS a noun suffix -wI', as well as the VERB
suffix -wI', which is the one you are thinking of which converts a verb into
a noun meaning "one who is/does".  Unfortunately, it is only used on nouns
which are capable of speech, so while you can talk about <baHwI'wi'> ("my
gunner/one-who-shoots"), you cannot talk about ?De'wI'wI'?, which would (if
it were allowed) be "my (speech-capable) computer".

Unless, of course, the Federation declared Commander Data as a thing, and
property, and gave him to you as a gift...


I think your confusion here stems from a (very common) misunderstanding of
-wI'.  I've explained this several times, but it never hurts to say ti again...

There are actually TWO uses of the suffix -wI':  the NOUN suffix -wI',
described on pages 25-26 meaning "my" when attached to a speech-capable noun
("my friend":  <jupwI'>); and the VERB suffix -wI', described on page 44 and
is very briefly mentioned on pages 19 and 20 (in the NOUN section, which is
why many people confuse the two, since it happens to turn a verb into a
noun...).  The suffix -wI' which means "one/thing who/which does" is the
VERB suffix--it can ONLY attach to verbs.  It turns that verb into a
NOUN--like <baH> "to shoot" becomes <baHwI'> "gunner (one who shoots)".
This word is now used as a noun, and can take noun suffixes (including the
noun suffix -wI':  <baHwI'wI'> "my gunner"!), and it is because of this
ability to "create" a noun that it is mentioned in the noun-section as a way
to make nouns.

Make sense?

Now that I have digressed, let's go back to your original problem, of how to
say "computer user".  This expression can be re-phrased every so slightly to
"the user of the computer", or "the computer's user"--which we DO have a way
to say, using the noun-noun construction on pages 30-31.  We already have
the word for "computer" <DewI'>--all we need is a word for "one who uses"...
hey!  if we have a verb "to use", we can use (the verb suffix) -wI' on it to
get that!  And we DO have a verb "to use"... <lo'>... so, "computer user",
using the noun-noun construction, would be:

        DewI' lo'wI'
        "the computer's one who uses"

I will warn you now:  there have been a number of debates on the proper use
of the noun-noun construction, and this may or may not fall under "improper
use" of it; I am not 100% sure what that arguement is about, and so cannot
always spot one of the "questionable" uses of the noun-noun contruction.  As
with all other grammar-debates, I will accept any/all sides/translations,
since my primary duty is to help you with your basic grammar, and not get
you embroilled in another debate which you don't understand...


Considering how late this was, I hope it helps...


--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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