tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon May 12 17:29:18 1997
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Re: KLBC: 'uQpa'
Jim LeMaster <[email protected]> writes:
>I think I understand what you are going for here - but the basic thought
>is lost: I was looking for a way to say "riddle" in tlhIngan Hol. I do
>not feel that "interrogation" = "riddle-ing".
A riddle is a question or problem which requires thought in order to answer.
The answer is usually not trivial. It challenges one to think clearly. Is
there a way you can to describe this using Klingon grammar and vocabulary?
>I am away from my materials, so I can't do it in tlhIngan Hol, but how
>about a word for a "word-problem."
Why do you need a noun? Rephrase the thought so that it more clearly
describes the nature of the idea. And as you substitute one noun for
another, you're apparently not noticing that there are more nouns in
your phrase that don't have a direct translation either.
>"I ask you a question about a word-problem and the answer is another
>word."
There's no Klingon noun meaning either "question" or "answer", so this
isn't going to work at all. There also isn't a simple translation for
the preposition "about", nor can we necessarily say "another word" with
a simple Klingon phrase. You're getting mired in trying to translate a
single word, and it's dragging the rest of your sentence down with it.
-- ghunchu'wI'