tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Dec 09 12:26:15 1997
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Re: KLBC: tlhIngan-Hol vIparHa'qu'!
- From: Qov <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: KLBC: tlhIngan-Hol vIparHa'qu'!
- Date: Tue, 09 Dec 1997 12:25:51 -0800
At 15:58 97-12-08 -0800, James Bayley wrote:
}Firstly, does KLBC stand for "Klingon Language Be Corrected"? Probably
}not, but I can't think what else it could be!
bItlhaQ, that's a good one. As good as any. The secret is, no one
remembers. *I* say it stands for Klingon Language Beginners' Contribution.
}Secondly, I just want to say how grateful I am for this service and
}Qov's advice etc. Aside from being enormously educational and fun, it's
}great to know that I am not the only 'terran' to be interested in
}artificial languages like Klingon. (All my friends reckon I'm nuts, but
}there you go)! :-)
}Thirdly, I was wondering how long all the grammarians and
}"frequent-thlInagn-Hol-message-submitters" have been learning to speak
}it:
Ten years on and off for me, come this February 1st, but much more off than
on. Perhaps two years of active study in total. I've had contact with other
speakers only since April 1996 and most of what I have learned has been
since then. I'll let others snip this paragraph and follow up with their
own histories.
}(Is Mark Okrand considered to be the authority on all grammatical
}points, or does anyone on this list speak it better than he does - if
}indeed he ever memorised the vocabulary himself)?
Marc Okrand is considered the ultimate authority on all points of the
language, but he does occasionally admit to mistakes. Officially the
Klingon prisoner Maltz is the authority whom MO consults.
He knows the language well and understands it when spoken to, but I've only
heard him answer in English. He doesn't know the vocabulary as well as some
of us do. He is very careful around KLI members because he knows we'll
analyze anything he says and pick it apart. I have not heard him speak
tlhIngan Hol sentences except for a toast he prepared and read from a
napkin. Someone reported that when asked to speak tlhIngan Hol at a
convention he said something like "nuqDaq 'oH puchpa''e' jol yIchu'" -- i.e.
a concatenation of a couple of back-of-the-book phrases.
}And finally, I have some queries about the corrections of my last text:
}ghItlhpu' Qov
}>}pongwIj James Bayley ghaHtaH.
}>
}>The pronoun goes first, and the noun must have {-'e'} on it. {James
}>Bayley 'oH pongwIj'e'}
}>
}>Literally, "My name, it is JMB." In Klingon you must use the
}>pronoun as well as the noun when you say something is something else.
}
}Now, that's really confused me. Stop me when I go wrong...
}Bearing O-V-S in mind, I can see now that "James Bayley" is the object
}and is therefore at the beginning of the sentence and that "my name" is
}the subject, resulting in "pongwIj" being at the end. However, surely,
}"James Bayley 'oH pongwIj" is enough by itself.
See section 6.3. This construction is a formula in Klingon. It's just the
way it is done.
}Of course, I'm not
}arguing with you, because you obviously know what you're talking about,
}but TKD 6.2.5. explains the use of 'e' as a topic marker referring to a
}previous SENTENCE as a whole. I speak Japanese, and this 'e'
}construction in, for example, "qama'pu' DIHoH
}'e' luSov", uses identical syntax to the equivalent Japanese
}translation, so I am familiar with this concept, but "we kill prisoners"
}is a sentence and "my name" is not.
I see your confusion. There is a pronoun {'e'} which serves as the object
of a verb and which represents the previous sentence. It is described in
section 6.2.5 and you appear to understand its use. It is a topic marker
only in the sense that any pronoun is a topic marker, standing in for
something else. That is the ONLY use of the pronoun {'e'}. There is also
an unrelated noun suffix {-'e'} which is a topic marker. The suffix {-'e'}
is used (a) any time you want to emphasize a noun, (b) to mark the noun that
is the subject of a copula verb, and (c) to mark the head of an otherwise
ambiguous relative clause.
}There is no verb in "James Bayley 'oH pongwIj'e'".
We sometimes call this sort of sentence a pronoun-as-to-be sentence, because
the pronoun acts as a verb, even taking verb suffixes if any are required.
James 'oH'a' ponglIj'e'?
tlhIngan maHbej!
}Also, 'e' is listed
}in the suffixes dictionary, but it is only used as a separate word in
}TKD. Please explain.
Now you know it is both a separate word AND a suffix. (I was going to say
"both a floor wax and a dessert topping, but then I realized I'd have to
explain Saturday Night Live advertising parodies to the young and foreign,
and it wasn't worth the effort).
}mumISmoH.
qamISHa'moHta''a'?
}Incidentally, should "tlhIngan-Hol" be hyphenated or is it two words? -
}I've seen it written with and without, and is it OK to say "Klingon" in
}English? - I've noticed that people tend to avoid saying it, and that
}the language is almost always referred to as "tlhIngan Hol" even in the
}middle of English texts).
"tlhIngan-Hol" is the name of this list, hyphenated because listserver
software doesn't allow spaces in names. {tlhIngan Hol} is the term the
language we are studying uses to identify itself. It's perfectly fine to
call it "Klingon" in any context that makes it clear you aren't talking
about Klingonaase or another Klingon language. My guess is that people
aren't avoiding saying Klingon so much as seizing the opportunty to say
tlhIngan Hol.
Qov [email protected]
Beginners' Grammarian