tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Mar 30 20:38:47 1997

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Re: KLBC: Practicing...



jatlh SuStel:

> For a couple, or a few, you can use {puS}.

I debated for a long time about this one.  I ultimately decided to just
use the English.  There's not really a reason, but to me "a couple"
seems a little more slang and informal that "a few."  Doesn't really
affect the sentence, and in the interest of speaking Klingon {puS}
probably would have worked fine, anyway!

> Also, when you use verbs of saying, like {jatlh}, you don't use {'e'}.  My
> reading of this has always been that the quotation is just a second sentence
> crammed against the first one, and is not the object of that sentence.
> 
> Who are "they"?  In English, it is sometimes used to indicate a general
> subject, but in Klingon, you've got something which does that: the suffix
> {-lu'}.

QI'yaH!

I forgot about {lu'}!  And just after the recent "is {tu'lu'} plural"
discussion!

> Finally, there's a Klingon proverb which says almost this same thing (TKW
> 185):
> 
> pIpyuS pach DaSop DaneHchugh pIpyuS puS DaghornIS.
> If you want to eat pipius claw, you'll have to break a few pipiuses.

Having read TKW three or four times, I was aware of this proverb, but
there is actually a small story as to why I used the other.  When I
translated your initial message, I immediately had a flashback to the
first Batman movie, where The Joker is in Vicki Vale's apartment.  His
girlfriend had just committed suicide, and he responded by saying, "You
can't make an omelet without breaking a couple of eggs."  I was going to
write, "As The Joker said in Batman,...," but decided not to mess with
that sort of a quotation at my early satge of learning.  So, I decided
to just translate the line itself with a general "they" as the speakers.
 
> But yours is:
> 
> "Omlet" DachenmoHlaHbe' "egg"-mey puS Daghorbe'chugh jatlhlu'.
> 
> Better yet:
> 
> "Omlet" DavutlaHbe' "egg"-mey puS Daghorbe'chugh jatlhlu'.

Well, cook doesn't quite carry the exact connotation I was getting at,
and I was trying to translate the original as closely as possible.
 
> You could also put {jatlhlu'} first:
> 
> jatlhlu' "omlet" DavutlaHbe' "egg"-mey puS Daghorbe'chugh.

Yeah.  I was simply using the OBJECT-VERB-SUBJECT construction and
assumed that the quote was the objest, thus I placed it first.  I do
understand how it wouldn't matter in this situation.
 
> maj.  'oy'be'lu'chugh Qapbe'lu'.

chay' Dajatlh "As The Joker said,"?
chaq nap tlhInganpu'.
<<jatlh "Joker">> neH?
"As the Joker said" lujatlhbe', qar'a'?

Note: I am afraid that these lines work better in hindsight, and might
not convey my thoguht accurately.  What I was originally trying to say
was, "How would you say 'As the Joker said?'  Perhaps the Klingons are
simpler than that.  They might only say 'The Joker speaks?'  They
wouldn't say 'As the Joker said' at all, would they?"  Now I know I
didn't translate exactly, but I couldn't quite recast these lines into
sensible Klingon.  What do you think?

-mIqIraH


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