tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Jan 02 17:17:37 1997

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RE: KLBC: First Post



January 01, 1997 9:57 PM, jatlh [email protected]:

> David 'oH pongwIj'e'

"David" 'oH je pongwIj'e', 'ej naDev "David Barron" tu'lu' je.  
mamISchoHbe'meH, tugh tlhIngan pong yIwIv!

Oh, you seem to be missing some sentences which appear in your English, like 
{wej tlhIngan pongwIj vIwIv.}

> tlhIngan Hol jatlhwI' chu' jIH
> pIj {[email protected]} lo' nabtaH jIH

What you've got here is a sentence-as-object sentence.  "I plan that I use 
[email protected] often."  The first sentence is {pIj 
<[email protected]> vIlo'}.  Don't forget those verb suffixes.  If the 
subject is "I" and the object is "it," as it is here, you must use {-vI-}.

The second sentence, "I plan that," is {'e' vInab}.  You cannot say {'e' 
vInabtaH}.  There is a rule in the sentence-as-object explanation in TKD (look 
it up, section 6.2.5) which states that you cannot put a Type 7 verb suffix on 
the second sentence of one of these sentences.

However, since the using of the list could be considered to be a continuous 
act, why not put it on {vIlo'}?

pIj <[email protected]> vIlo'taH 'e' vInab.

> De'wI'mey ghojmoHtaHbogh DuSaQDaq ghojwI' jIH

There is an entry in TKD which says that {ghoj} means "learn," and another 
that says {ghojmoH} means "teach."  This seems to make sense, since "teach" 
means "cause to learn."  However, one way of interpreting this sentence is "I 
am a student in a school which is causing computers to learn."  Now, unless 
you're talking about AI, this doesn't make sense.

Until we get an official word on this by Marc Okrand, I advocate care.  Here 
are a couple of ideas:

DuSaQDaq jIghunlaHmeH jIHaDlI'
At school, I am studying to be able to program.  (That is what you're learning 
to do, isn't it?)

DuSaQDaq ghunlI'ghach vIHaDlI'.
At school, I'm studying the process of programming.

The first of these solutions is better than the second, I think.  Still, this 
is a more advanced topic.

> ben cha'maH cha' jIbogh

{ben} is not numbered.  It comes *after* the number.  {cha'maH cha' ben 
jIbogh}

> [Universal Translator Engaged]   [Replaying From Time Index 00-01-13]

You've been playing Star Trek: Klingon too, eh?

> 1. We know that the verb {Qum} is "communicate" and that it can be
> nominalized into {QumwI'} for "one who/thing which communicates", but is
> there a sufffix or construct which would nominalize it into "message" or
> "communication" or "communique"?  I am wondering about this due to the lack
> of a noun for "message" or "communique".

Actually, you need merely use the word {jabbI'ID} "data transmission."  This 
is especially appropriate for describing e-mail, as this is exactly what it 
is.

> 2. I have seen several variations of {tlhIngan Hol mu'} which phonetically
> resemble their counter-parts and carry the same meaning but with 
dramatically
> different spellings which don't conform to grammar rules of {tlhIngan Hol}.
>  Examples would include (( {tlhIngan Hol} / other ))  {betleH} / bet'telh,
>   {Daqtagh} / d'k tahg, {petaQ} / p'tahk, and so on.  Where do these other
> words come from and why do they exist?

Words like {betleH}, {Daqtagh}, {petaQ}, etc., are only the represention of 
the *sounds*, the pronunciation, of the word.  They do not represent the 
actually spellings of the words.  Indeed, it is unlikely that the Klingon 
writing system {pIqaD} is an alphabet at all (at least, this is my opinion on 
the subject).  Unfortunately, we know extremely little about the Klingon 
writing system.

Words like "bat'telh," "d'k tahg," and "p'tahk," etc., are supposedly the 
accepted Federation Standard spellings of the same words as above.  The 
real-life answer is that the scriptwriters who come up with these names say 
"Let's make it look really weird!  Let's throw in lots of apostrophes!  A 
language can't be really alien without lots of non-functional apostrophes!"  
Simply put, they want the words to "look" cool, so instead of writing 
"daktag," for instance (which is how the actors would pronounce it), they say 
"hmmm!!!  Let's throw an apostrophe in after the 'd,' and . . ."

The site on MSN is kind of silly in this way.  In the entry for {betleH}, I 
believe it says

Klingon: betleH
English: bat'telh

It's not an English word!!  It's a Klingon word, being badly transliterated 
into English spelling!

Anyway, don't worry about it.  Okrand shows us how it's *correctly* 
pronounced.  He says nothing of spelling. 

> And do {tlhIngan Hol} words exist for
> the other form of words like "s'tarahk" (a steed) and "kraw'za" (a bird) 
from
> the book "Kahless" by Michael Jan Friedman?

Depending on who you talk to, there are various levels of "canon" {tlhIngan 
Hol}.  Usually, it's considered to be that which Okrand has provided us in his 
"study" of the language.  Some believe that you should be able to use any word 
you hear on TV.  Myself, I don't see why the two views are so mutually 
exclusive.  Okrand really *is* studying the language; he keeps tabs on what 
new Klingon utterances he hears, and occasionally makes a "discovery."  (See 
the thread on {parmaq}, for an example.)  This is one way that TV Klingon can 
become "canon."

Anyway, the novels are far from being "official" sources.  (Then again, in the 
early days of Star Trek, novels were thought to be just as important as the 
original show!)  I wish that Friedman had taken a look at TKD's pronunciation 
guide before making up his animal names.  He obviously knew something, because 
he *does* use the {-mey} suffix, but really, just how is "s'tarahk" 
pronounced?  (He also neglects to tell us what these lifeforms *look* like; I 
remember reading the book and trying to keep an Earthlike image out of my 
head.)

> Are these other words
> Terran-izations like writing "Kahless" instead of {qeylIS} and "Worf" 
instead
> of {wo'rIv}?

They must be.  Of course, they're not "canon" unless Okrand "discovers" them.  
Myself, I wouldn't mind at all if someone writing a story in Klingon wanted to 
talk about those wormy things which were mentioned several times (whatever 
they were called), but because it's not "canon," it'd have to be explained 
first: what they look like, if they're good eating, etc.

> And what is the consensus about adding standard {tlhIngan Hol}
> suffixes to these non-{tlhIngan Hol} words like "s'tarahkmey" which appeared
> in Friedman's "Kahless"? ( {-mey} being a noun pluralizer of course.)

*My* consensus :) is that if you accept the names as Klingon animals, then 
adding {-mey} is just fine.  You're not adding a legitimate suffix to a 
nonlegitimate word; the entire word, noun plus suffix, is being 
transliterated.

-- 
SuStel
Beginners' Grammarian
Stardate 97007.4


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