tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Oct 02 00:27:50 1997
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Re: KLBC
- From: Qov <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: KLBC
- Date: Thu, 02 Oct 1997 00:27:31 -0700
At 21:34 97-10-01 -0700, Msala wrote:
majQa'! You tried it! jIbelqu'.
Your first surprise is that Klingon sentences don't follow the same word
order as English ones. That's why I advised you to read section 6.1 before
you started. But as you don't have TKD yet, I'll explain. In English the
order of a normal sentence is Subject - Verb - Object (SVO). "The boy sees
the dog." The subject, "boy" who does the action of the verb "sees" and the
"dog" is the object that receives the action, and is seen. If I wrote
instead, "The dog sees the boy." That would mean the DOG was the subject
and the boy the object. If I write "sees the dog the boy" or "the boy the
dog sees" I don't have sentences anymore. The words have to be in a
particular order to make sense.
Klingon also requires words to be in a particular order to make sense, but
the order isn't the same: instead it's Object - Verb - Subject. So the noun
before the verb is the recipient of the action and the noun after the verb
is the one that performs the action. {targh legh vulqangan} "The Vulcan
sees the targ." When there is no object, the order is just Verb - Subject.
{Doy' tlhIngan} "The Klingon is tired."
}1.The Guard tortures the prisoner. avwI' joy' qama .
Watch spelling. There are five letters in {qama'} and six in {'avwI'}. No
Klingon word starts with a vowel.
Based on what I've just discussed above, you now know that in your sentence
{'avwI'} is the object, {joy'} is the verb and {qama'} is the subject. So
the prisoner, the {qama'} is the one that is doing the action of torturing,
according to your sentence. Oops, should be the guard who does the
torturing. {qama' joy' 'avwI'}. The same problem turns up in each of the
other sentences. I'll let you fix them yourself.
}2.The prisoner escapes. qama nargh .
}
}3.The Guard is angry . avwI' QeH .
}
}4.The Guard kills the prisoner .avwI' HoH qama .
}And for the Question
I actually meant the question for other people who might read the post and
want to answer. I wanted them to leave the sentences for you, so I gave
them a harder task: writing a story. The sentence says "How was the
prisoner able to escape?"
}chay' narghlaH gama ? Am Unsure .. I found a Dictionary Online ..but I
}didn't find but cha' - display/show laH =can/able
{chay'} means "how?" and you're right {-laH} indicates can or be able.
{narghlaH} together means "is/was/will be able to escape" (that's right, it
could mean past present or future, that's how Klingon works).
}I couldn't find gama ...
There is no letter {g} in Klingon. Look again. You've used this word before.
}and Couldn't Find "the"...
Klingon, like a lot of Earth languages, doesn't have words for "a" or "the."
{'avwI'} means "guard" or "the guard" or "a guard" whichever is necessary to
the sense.
}Let me ask a question ... Is the Klingon Language similar to the Sign
}language ASL as for Sentence structure.. ?
I don't speak ASL. I seem to remember that it has a word order that isn't
SVO or OVS either. If you speak ASL then you're already familiar with the
idea of a different sentence structure, so that should help.
Qov [email protected]
Beginners' Grammarian