tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Nov 18 16:44:41 1997
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Re: How are you
- From: "Robyn Stewart" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: How are you
- Date: Tue, 18 Nov 1997 16:45:41 PST
- Organization: NLK Consultants, Inc.
- Priority: normal
DarkShadow asked
> How would you say
>
> How are you?
>
> in klingon
> Or any equivilant.
The equivalent of "how are you" in Klingon depends on the situation
where you might say it. Here are some possibilities:
1. a polite part of a greeting ritual
If you read the introduction to TKD you will learn that Klingons do
not have polite greeting rituals, and if you wish to be thought a
fine fellow by a Klingon you have just encountered, you will get
straight to the point, not waste his time with rituall questions from
another culture. So the correct translation of "how are you" used as
part of a greeting, is to say nothing.
2. a doctor examining a patient
bIpIvchoH'a' - are you getting better?
bIpIvchu''a' - are you completely heatlhy?
3. inquiring about someone's skills, e.g. I hear you speak Klingon.
I'm pretty bad at it. How are you?
bIpo''a'? - Are you skilled?
4. inquiring about sufficiency, or condition: e.g. We're out of
eggs, how are you? The soldiers are hungry, how are you?
Repeat the verb, using the emphatic pronoun:
loj QImmeymaj. boghaj'a' tlhIH?
Our eggs are gone. Do *you* have any?
ghung negh. bIghung'a' SoH?
The other soldiers are hungry. Are *you* hungry?
Darkshadow, I'm almost positive that you were simply asking for the
translation of the greeting, and these examples are perhaps over your
head, but I want you to see how a phrase in one language can't be
translated simply into another and expected to work the same way.
Maybe you can think of yet another way that "how are you" is used in
English.
To learn Klingon, rather than thinking of something you want to say
in English, and then looking for how to translate it, instead find
out some Klingon phrase or word or piece of grammar, and think about
ways to use that.
- Qov