tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Sep 09 10:21:24 1997

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Age



ghItlh Lieven tevram je:

>>DIS 'ar ben bIbogh?
>>(How old are you?)
>
>*giggle* 44. I can't remember how we decided to cast that into Klingon.
>I could do pseudo-spanish and say DIS loSmaH loS yInta' (I have lived 44 
>years)

The 'age' thing has been discussed - this is from the archives of the Marc
Okrand BBS on MSN.

Qermaq

P.S. tevram, "giggle"'a' thInganpu'? :o)

------------------------

ghItlh Marc-Okrand: The word ben can be used to mean "years old," but in
Klingon, one doesn't say "I am x years old." [...] "I am 40 years old"
would be expressed as: loSmaH ben jIboghpu' This is "I was born 40 years
ago" (loSmaH "40," ben "years ago," jI- "I," bogh "be born," -pu'
"perfective").  As is normal in Klingon sentences, the time element (in
this case, loSmaH ben "40 years ago") comes first.

ghItlh SuStel: Now this surprises me.  I have always assumed that this
statement would be said as loSmaH ben jIbogh. Since Klingon doesn't
indicate tense with grammatical features, the context will be used in its
place.  In this case, the translation would be I was born 40 years ago. 
With the -pu' suffix, it seems to tell me that as of 40 years ago, I was
already born.  Opinions?

ghItlh charghwI': On my forty second birthday, I said: loSmaH ben jIbogh.
On the day after my forty second birthday and the 363 other days of this
year, I said or will say: loSmaH ben jIboghpu'.





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