tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Jul 18 09:58:51 1997
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Re: What does "..." mean?
Qeygh wrote:
>
> On 1997.07.17 at 4:57 PM -0700, [email protected] wrote:
>
> > How can I say in Klingon
> > "What does xyz mean?" when I want to know the meaning of xyz.
> > *xyz* 'oH nuq'e' ? (?)
>
> I would translate that as "What is *xyz*?". Which could be asking for a
> description instead of a definition.
>
> Perhaps something like "*xyz* vIyaj chay' 'e' DaHech?" or "*xyz* vIyaj
> chay' net Hech?" would be better.
>
> The intent here is "How do you intend that I understand *xyz*?" or "How am
> I meant to understand *xyz*?" -- I don't claim to be fluent, so I may have
> botched this pretty badly.
That looks correct to me, but unnecessarily complicated. Back in
the days when I had to ask for a definintion of every third word, I
said, {chay' *xyz* vImugh?} - "How do I translate *xyz*".
wIvqu', law'wI'pu'vaD Holtej jIH
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| Thaddaeus Vick, Linguist to the Masses | [email protected] |
| | |
| I could be wrong. After all, there's | |
| a first time for everything. | http://www.crl.com/~dvick |
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