tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Aug 21 20:55:04 1997
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Re: The Unknown PK sentence -- At Last!
On Thu, 21 Aug 1997, Marian Schwartz wrote:
| qoror here. I've been taking things from the addendum in the back of
|KGT, and I just made a marvelous discovery. We finally know what the sentence
|from the beginning of Power Klingon that we couldn't figure out was! A new
|word, {qotlh}, "deserve, warrant." So the sentence is: {bIyIntaH 'e'
|Daqotlhbe'.} Go over it (I just did) and you'll find it makes perfect sense.
|"You do not deserve to keep living. It fits in perfectly with the context, too.
Sounds good. Some time ago we discussed that scene at length and the best
version offered that matched what the actor seems to be saying was
{bIyIntaH 'e' Dachoqbe'}, *very* loosely translated as "You won't save your
life" (using {choq} "preserve"). I was never very happy with it and I like
your solution much, much better. I'll have to listen to it again.
|In the final sequence on PK, the Klingon says {De' pegh vIghaj} "I have secret
|information." How is {pegh} being used? Does it also mean "be a secret"? Or
|is it just strange apposition?
Though {pegh} is glossed in TKD as "keep something secret," Okrand seems to
use it for "be secret" as well. Cf. the line from the jitney scene in CK:
Daqvam nuq? What is this place?
pegh De'vetlh. That is classified information.
(i.e. "That information is secret.")
Translating this as "That information keeps (something) secret" is
nonsense. And if this were actually the noun {pegh}, then the copula is
missing -- you would expect {pegh 'oH De'vetlh'e'} "That information is a
secret." Unless it's another dialect of course. {{;-)
It sounds like Okrand put all of his post-TKD notes into the new book,
which I still haven't seen. Is there another entry for {pegh} in the KGT
glossary?
-- Voragh