tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Dec 12 11:58:06 1997

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Re: [KLBC] wo' mung



Phil writes:
>Qov writes:
>> At 14:13 97-12-09 -0800, Phil wrote:
>> }It think I forgot everything Qov told me :( 
>> 
>> ghuy'cha'!
>> 
>Great... I can't even translate that.
>
>ghu -> baby
>cha' -> display(v) or two(n)
>
>I can't fit the y anywhere :(

You definitely forgot one thing I told you, so I'll tell it again:  
Do not try to find the meaning of a word by looking up all its parts 
in the word list.  In 99.9 percent of the words I write, there is ONE 
root word, ONE stem that can be looked up in the wordlist.  I use 
compounds very rarely, usually annotate them when I do, and I don't 
think beginners should use them at all.  Here's how you would look up 
the word {ghuy'cha'}.

You know all the prefixes are two letters long.  You should 
learn that no syllable starts with two consonants together, let 
alone three, so even if you don't know that {*ghu- } isn't a valid 
prefix, you can know that {*y'cha'} can't be a word, so therefore 
there is no prefix.  You look {ghuy'cha'} up and the longest match 
you get is {ghu}, but that leaves {*-y'cha'} again, and it can't be a 
suffix, any more than it can be a word.  It could be the unknown word 
{?ghuy'} followed by a suffix, but you find no suffix {*-cha'}.  So 
the whole word {ghuy'cha'} must be something not listed in the 
vocabulary list. You will find it in the section on profanity in 
chapter 6 of the main book (not the addendum).  I intended it as an 
expression of strong dismay, not as an insult.  Try looking up:

tIqel
ghomaj
ghomjaj
ghomagh
ghom'egh
ghmegh
lulIghmeH
lulIghmaj
nIgheghmoH
nIghmoH
ral'choH
maw'choH
maw'egh
DuSaQmey
DuSaQmoH

Some are impossible, because I made up a word, or because I made a 
combination of letters impossible in Klingon.  Translate the 
translatable ones and identify what is wrong with the impossible 
ones.

> However I found (with a lot of looking 
> around in the TKD) ghay'cha'  which is an insult... Qov did you 
> make a typo ? ;)

As far as I remember, ghay'cha' is an expression of anger, not an 
insult.  I am only assuming the very similar ghuy'cha' is the same.

>> Do you understand this?:
>> 
>> meqwIj boyajmeH HIQoy 
>> 
> Listen to me so you understand my reason.
> or
> For you to understand my reason, listen to me.

maj.  Does that adequately translate your meaning?

- Qov


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