tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Jul 04 14:45:33 1997

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Re: I need a little help here



On Fri, 4 Jul 1997 00:23:28 -0700 (PDT)  [email protected] 
wrote:

> In a message dated 97-07-03 03:23:55 EDT, Guido writes:
> 
> > Anyway, any form of "to be" in Klingon is represented by 'oH. You can say
> >  "lam 'oH Duj'e'" for "The ship is dirty", but also "HoD 'oH jIH'e'" for "I
> >  am the captain". In literal abbreviations, these are talked about as "The
> >  ship be dirty" and "I be the captain", since Klingons as we all know do
> not
> >  care about such fine grammatical distinctions as "am, is, are". Plaahh!!
> >  
> 
> Beware!!!!!
> 
> lam 'oH Duj'e' means The ship is dirt; not The ship is dirty.

{lam Duj} is something you could say to the captain and get the 
response: {jISaHbe'}. {lam 'oH Duj} is something you could say 
to the captain and your last fragmenting memory would likely be 
your view of the glowing tip of his disruptor. These 
distinctions in language can be important.

> To say The ship is dirty, try lam Duj.

bIlughchu'. Meanwhile, you didn't notice that he also referred 
to the captain as incapable of using language, in a HIGHLY 
unusual use of TWO pronouns in a "to be" construction which 
don't agree with each other in person or scentience. {HoD jIH} 
is correct. The {'oH} has no reason to be there and the {-'e'} 
on {jIH} is similarly unnecessary, unless you are being emphatic 
about identifying YOURSELF as the captain.
 
> peHruS

charghwI'





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