tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Jan 02 17:20:36 1997

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RE: KLBC: Does this make sense?



January 02, 1997 2:51 PM, jatlh mIqIraH:

> Last night, I was just excercising my creative muscles and found myself=20
> writing (in English, unfortunately!)

Do'Ha'.  tlhIngan Hol'e' reH lulo' ghItlhwI''a' net Sov.

> a short little story about a human m=
> an=20

You've got a weird mailer.  Can you stop it from sending out the wrong codes?

> and a Klingon woman who find themselves serving together aboard a Klingon=
> =20
> ship.  During dinner one evening, her brother (also aboard the ship) gets=
>  into=20
> a fight with the human (I haven't figured out why, yet.)

The human took his food?
The human looks weak?
He doesn't like the human's pet tribble?
He thinks the human's ugly?
He's bored?

reH 'eb tu'lu'!
There are always possibilities!  :)

  The Klingon wom=
> an=20
> sides with the human, and, of course, her brother is not very happy about=
>  it.=20
>  As he storms out, I wrote that he says:
> 
> HumanvaD parmaq bISovchugh, yIngagh.  batlh qorDu=92lIj DawIv pagh batlhH=
> a=92=20
> novHom DawIv!

HumanvaD parmaq bISovchugh, yangagh.  batlh qorDu'lIj DawIv pagh batlhHa' 
novHom DawIv!

It's really not too bad.  There are some obvious flaws.  "If you know love," 
has "love" as the object, so you cannot use the {bI-} prefix.  You need the 
prefix {Da-}.

Is the "knowing" of love done for the benefit of the human?  That's what 
{-vaD} indicates.  If you're talking about "human love" (which is not the same 
as plain old {parmaq}, probably), you might use {Human parmaq DaSovchugh}.  
Better yet, {Human parmaq Dayajchugh}.

Let's see: you've also phrased the second half of this as two statements: 
either you will do this or you will do that.  I'd have phrased this with at 
least one command.

batlh qorDu'lIj DawIvbe'chugh, vaj batlhHa' novHomvam yIwIv!

If you will not choose your family honorably, then choose this minor alien 
species dishonorably!

> Does that make any sense?  I wrote the Klingon version first so nobody=20
> (including myself) would accidentally use any sort of hindsight on it.

As soon as I got to this assertion, I stopped and did the analysis above.  No 
hindsight.  Let's see if I understood you.

> W=
> hat=20
> I'm trying to say is, "If you love the human so much, go mate with him. =20
> Either choose your family with honor or him without!"  Obviously this is =
> not=20
> literal, but I've always felt that it's not a good idea to try to literal=
> ly=20
> translate between the two laanguages.  By the way, the two sentances are=20
> completely unrelated; I don't mean to imply Klingon incest!

It never occurred to me!

> Did I miss=20
> anything?  Are they grammatically correct?  Or has the Fek'lhr struck onc=
> e=20
> again? {{:-)

reH HIv veqlargh!  'ach reH veqlargh Suvrup tlhIngan SuvwI'!

-- 
SuStel
Beginners' Grammarian
Stardate 97007.7


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