tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Jul 24 09:30:46 1997

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Re: vegh and the nentay'

: According to [Voragh]:
: >One might (now) very well order the initiate to get moving by saying,
{tIvegh!}. 
: 
: That just sounds very strange to me. I'd expect the people
: yelling this to either form an arch, as two did at qep'a', or
: I'd expect the speakers to be giants with doorways in their
: bellies, taunting the listener to climb through these doors.

True, but don't forget that as the initiate passes through, the warriors
lean over him to poke him with their painstiks forming a temporary arch or
tunnel of sorts. One could well use {vegh} *figuratively* in this case.

: >Okrand has described this very ceremony in Skybox card S9,
: >finessing the lack of a word for "row (of people)" - apparently {tlhegh}
: >"line, rope" wasn't quite right:
: >   poSDaq nIHDaq je QamtaHvIS SuvwI'pu'. chaH jojDaq yItnIS lopwI'
: >   "The initiate must pass through a gauntlet of warriors."
: 
: Does the card really have a period there? That first mu'tlheghqoq has no
main verb.
: 
: charghwI'

Yep. Here's the complete text:

                    T.N.G. EPISODES SERIES (2nd SEASON): CARD S9
                         qaSDI' nenghep   Age of Ascension

qaSDI' nenghep, qa' patlh chu' chav tlhIngan SuvwI'.  poSDaq nIHDaq je
QamtaHvIS SuvwI'pu'.  
chaH jojDaq yItnIS lopwI'.  luchovmeH 'oy'naQmey lo'.

"The Age of Ascension marks a new level of spiritual attainment by a Klingon
warrior. The initiate must pass through a gauntlet of warriors who test him
with painstiks."


Okrand's rendering (possibly of a source text provided by Skybox) is only a
loose translation, not the simplistic word-for-word stuff of TKD and other
primers, and is therefore much better as a translation (though not for
learning the language). I've come to consider the Skybox cards good examples
of advanced Klingon--or, rather, normal literary Klingon--compared to the
elementary Klingon in TKD and the intermediate level stuff in the two
audiotapes, with the proverbs of TKW falling somewhere after the tapes in
complexity. 

Perhaps this is why Lawrence calls this material "Everyday Klingon" when he
publishes it in _HolQeD_ as it's not the simplified, artificial material
normally provided to learners in classroom situations but "real life"
Klingon. I imagine that's what we'll see in the new book. Anyone who has
ever tried to learn a language soon realizes that native speakers--talking
to and writing for other native speakers--rarely sound like their grammar
books. Believe me, I've gone through this rough transition twice: in Russia
and in Israel. But that's when you really begin learning the language!


Voragh

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