tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Dec 26 20:28:07 1997

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Re: KLBC -- jIlIHegh (extreme beginner)

Welcome, notjISaH. Since you knew to put KLBC in your header, 
I'll assume you already know about Beginners' Grammarians and 
KLBC, etc. Thanks for providing the English as well as Klingon 
stuff. It helps a lot when I try to help you with your writing.

On Thu, 25 Dec 1997 22:27:28 -0800 (PST) Falling 
<[email protected]> wrote:

> nuqneH.  *notjISaH* 'oH pongwIj 'e'.  

majQa'. You have only one small error here. The {'e'} should be 
a suffix on {pongwIj}, not a separate word. Delete the space, 
and it is perfect.

> ghomvamDaq jIchu'.  DaHjaj jIHvaD TKD
> nobpu' loDnI'wIj.  

valqu'ba' loDnI'lIj. All this is fine with one little comment. 
{-pu'} does not mean past tense. It means perfective aspect. 
Your English translation says, "...my brother gave me...". 
That's simple past tense. Klingon doesn't have tense, so past 
tense is simply figured out from context. You set the time 
context with {DaHjaj} and considering how well you've done up to 
this point, we'd have to assume it was earlier today that you 
got your TKD.

As written in Klingon, it would translate: "Today, my brother 
has given me TKD," or "Today, my brother had given me TKD," or 
even "Today, my brother will have given me TKD." None of this 
matches what you apparently intended, so you probably want to 
omit {-pu'} here.

> tlhingan Hol ghojmeH vIqeqtaH.  

You probably want {jIqeqtaH} instead of {vIqeqtaH} unless you 
are implying "it" as the object. What you have is not wrong, but 
it does not match the English translation below. That would have 
required {jIqeqtaH}.

While {ghojmeH} works here as is, it would be a little more 
precise to say {vIghojmeH}, since you really are the one person 
who will learn because you are practicing. {-meH} verbs are used 
without a prefix sometimes, but this setting is not a 
particularly good one for this. Again, what you have is not 
wrong. It would be better with {vI-}.

> jIwebeghpu'be' 'e' vItul.

This is the worst mistake you've made so far. Realize that it is 
remarkable that you wrote this much for your first attempt and 
only made these minor errors. You should be proud.

Your first mistake is an honest one. {-'egh} always begins with 
an apostrophe. There is a typo in TKD where it is left out and 
you probably learned it from that one instance. So, the spelling 
should be {jIweb'eghpu'be'}.

Meanwhile, {web} means "be disgraced". Most likey, it is 
intransitive -- it can not have a direct object. Think of 
{tIn}, which means "be big". Would it make any sense to say 
{jItIn'egh}? "I big myself." That's a lot like "I am disgraced 
myself," or "I have been disgraced myself."

You can turn most intransitive verbs into transitive ones with 
the suffix {-moH}. {jIweb'eghmoHpu'be' 'e' vItul.} "I hope that 
I have not caused myself to be disgraced."

> :-)
> 
> wa'maH' Soch ben boghpu'.  

Except for forgetting the right prefix, this is perfect. Who was 
born seventeen years ago?

> ghojwI' jIH.  *University of Richmond, VA*Daq
> De'wI'mey QeD yab joq vIHaDtaH.  toH...Doy' jIH.  

I'll have to look below to figure out exactly what that middle 
sentence was supposed to mean. It got confusing around the word 
{QeD}. "I am studying Computer Science or the mind."? The rest 
of this is perfect.

Except, of course that you left the prefix off of {Doy'}. You 
gave the pronoun, but you still need the right prefix.

> Hmm...well, just to help out anyone reading this, it was supposed to say
> approximately:
> 
> Hello.    (Is "nuqneH" an appropriate general greeting, or should it only be
> used in a context where the "what do you want?" thing makes more sense?)

People fight over this here a lot. Some people will lecture you 
every time you use it in a setting where it would not be 
appropriate to say in English, "What do you want?"

Meanwhile, it is probably idiomatic to the langauge and works 
fine in any setting where you wish to greet someone. Most of the 
time Klingons just state their business without any greeting, 
but {nuqneH} is the standard Klingon greeting, even if the words 
"What do you want" would not necessarily be appropriate. I mean, 
do literal translations make sense for the following English and 
French greetings?

"What's up?" 

"Yo."

"Dude!"

"Hello." [Note that "Hello" was something one yelled at someone 
else across a wide expanse in order to get their attention. We 
started using it as a greeting when the telephone was invented, 
because we were yelling at someone we knew was miles away.]

"How are things at your end?" [Do we REALLY want to know this? I 
mean, it sounds a little PERSONAL to ME.]

"Excuse me." [Why excuse yourself while entering? It sounds like 
an exit line.]

Comment allez vous? ["How do you go?" How do you go WHERE?]

{nuqneH} is just something people say to get your attention and 
acknowledge that they have yours. It is a greeting. It is 
THE greeting. Deal with it.

> My name is notjISaH.    (I just made that up a few minutes ago.  Is there some
> formula for creating names?  Or is this one dangerously close to any
> known/taken ones?)      

I've never seen anything remotely like it. Your name is an 
entire sentence glued together; a particularly effective 
sentence, I might add. I like it, in a strange sort of way. 
Anyway, I think there is something about names on the FAQ you 
were supposed to have gotten when you joined the list. You might 
check at http://www.kli.org. I think there is a link to such 
things...

Your name is longer than most and has a more literal meaning 
than most. Most names are either nouns or gibberish. Yours has a 
verb and an adverb. It works for me.

> I am new to this group.   (Is there an accepted
> expression for "mailing list" 'round here?)    

jabbI'IDghom.

> Today my brother gave me TKD.
> (Christmas, wah-HOO!!  Hey, could I perhaps have written munobpu'  and dropped
> the jIHvaD, and still have gotten the indirect object across? IF I did get it
> across, that is...)     

Yes. Okrand tells us that if the indirect object is first or 
second person, this shortcut will work. Meanwhile, he said that 
a while back on MSN, so it is not in TKD.

> In order to learn the Klingon language, I am
> practicing.  I hope that I have not disgraced myself (...YET... -- but this
> expression was too difficult.)  :-)

You got the overall grammar right. You just honestly misspelled 
one suffix and omitted another. You were VERY close to correct.
 
> I was born 17 years ago.    (I am 17 years old. -- can't figure out a good way
> to express age...am I missing an idiom?)     

I think you were very close. I can't find the example Okrand 
used, but I think it would be {wa'maH Soch ben jIboghpu'.} 
That's from memory, not from one of my notes.

> I am a student.  I am studying
> computer science and/or psychology     (QeD yab = "the mind's science"???)
> at the University of Richmond in VA.  Well...I'm tired.

It would have been MUCH clearer had you repeated the word {QeD}. 
And that would be {yab QeD}, not {QeD yab}.

> This is really fascinating.  I love languages in general, but I'm too sleepy
> and overwhelmed to try to express anything else in Klingon tonight.  

You did wonderfully.
 
> I was idly thinking about stuff I could figure out how to say, and it occurred
> to me to try "dishwasher"...the machine or the person.  Unfortunately I can't
> find a word for dish, so I am working on "washing machine."  

In "Klingon for the Galactic Traveler", Okrand gives us many new 
words. Two of them are {jengva'} for the singular "plate" and 
{ngop} for the irregular plural "plates". It is similar to 
{peng} and {cha} (especially during a food fight). Anyway {ngop 
Say'moHwI'} would be ambiguous in terms of it being a person or 
a machine, just like in English.

If you want to make sure you are referring to a machine and not 
a person, you also could describe it as:

ngop Say'moHmeH jan

It is a device that has the purpose of causing plates to be 
clean. Clauses with {-meH} preceed the nouns they describe.

> Say'moHwI'         seems to make sense for "someone or something which washes
> (makes clean)"  Assuming that's passable, I have a question about how to add
> some kind of object in there.    Using "Sut" for clothing, can I maybe say  
> Sut Say'moHlu'wI'        ?  The lu' I mean to be the indefinite subject
> suffix, but maybe it's not necessary?  

It is not necessary. In fact, the machine is the subject, right? 
That is implied by the {-wI'}. Lose the {-lu'}. It screws things 
up.

> I haven't really seen anything (I don't
> think) saying that wI' can modify the whole thing together.  

It doesn't have to. {Sut Say'moHwI'} means either "clothing's 
washer" or "washer of clothing". The {-wI'} transforms the verb 
"to wash" into a noun "washer". Once it is a noun, it can be 
used in a noun-noun phrase with another noun.

> Probably I
> haven't got a good enough grasp of the language to be messing w/ this, but I'd
> love it if someone'd give me an opinion, or point me in the right
> direction...or even just tell me I'm a moron and then do it correctly...  =)

You are not a moron. If you have really only had TKD for a day 
and you are already this good, there are probably half a dozen 
people now on this list who want to shoot you.
 
> thanks a lot!! g'night & happy holidays.
 
Same to ya.
 
> --notjISaH      (temporarily anyway)

charghwI', taghwI' pabpo' ru'
Temporary Beginner's Grammarian, December 20-30

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