tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu May 15 21:17:41 1997

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Re: Must



ja' HomDoq:
>for one thing, there are certainly several different ways to translate
>"I need food" into Klingon, depending on the context; if indeed the
>speaker was expressing his hunger, {jISopnIS} is one possibility - or
>is your point above, that an English speaker would not use "I need food"
>in that sense?

If the speaker is merely expressing hunger, he'd probably say {jIghung}.
English is full of various ways to get across a given idea.  Klingon is
slightly more limited in its ability to express ideas, but it's good at
adding little pieces of extra information with tiny suffixes.

Without further context, {jISopnIS} says the speaker must eat.  There's
a verb with a suffix that indicates the speaker has no choice about it.
"I need food" doesn't imply the same lack of volition.  The way I read
it, {-nIS} simply does not get addressed fully by the "need something"
translation.  It's got to be "need to *do* something", just like {-qang}
has to be "willing to *do* something".

>for another, I'm probably (heavily) influenced by my mother tongue :),
>which is German: the literal translation of "I must eat" into German
>lacks 'something' (out of context neural backfire: say 'friend' and enter),
>I'd have to say "I have to eat something" ("Ich muss was essen" for those
>who need to know :); so I don't see "I need food" too far from "I need to
>eat"

Lets pick another verb that doesn't have this problem in German and see
how it fits the way you're thinking about this.  How about {jIba'nIS}?
I think "I must sit" and "I need a chair" are different in the same way
as "I must eat" and "I need food" are.  What do you think?

-- ghunchu'wI'




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