tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Dec 20 16:51:27 1997
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"First" thoughts
On Sat, 20 Dec 1997, Bill Willmerdinger wrote:
|Mark E. Shoulson wrote:
|>Unless this is something else I'm missing from KGT, we can't use the ordinal
|>numbers as adverbials. As far as I know, {wa'DIch} means first as in {nagh
|>wa'DIch} ("first rock") but not as in "first we must ..."
|
|There is the "odd" usage of {wa'DIch} on S15, where the Klingon text
|reads:
|
| wa'DIch tlhIngan Dujmey luleghlu'pu'bogh rur qItI'nga' Duj...
|
|Did we ever figure out what that was all about?
I've always been somewhat confused by the confusion this card has generated
since "first" is *not* being used as an adverbial in either text.
"Similar in configuration to the first Klingon vessels encountered,
the K'Tinga class..."
"The first Klingon vessels" is just a noun phrase and can only be {tlhIngan
Dujmey wa'DIch}. Can anyone think of another way to translate this? The
only interesting bit about my reconstruction, is that it implies that
ordinal numbers can also modify plural nouns in Klingon:
tlhIngan Duj wa'DIch the first Klingon ship
tlhIngan Dujmey wa'DIch the first Klingon ships
It seems fairly obvious that {wa'DIch} was for some reason mis-printed by
the Skybox folks who generally do a good job but, let's face it, the
accuracy of the Klingon text isn't their first priority. We should be
grateful that they continue to pay Okrand to translate a few bits of
Klingon text each year for one of their card series. We've seen other
copy-editing mistakes that I'd like to think Okrand would have caught had
he been given a chance to proof-read the text before it was sent to the
printers.
But I have to ask with Bill, has anyone discussed this -- or any of the
other cards -- with Okrand himself? How closely do the Skybox people work
with him? How many people handle, edit and re-edit the text and artwork on
the way to the printer?
Voragh