tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Jun 06 15:57:56 1998
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Re: Satlho'
On Sat, 6 Jun 1998, Wolfgang Girke wrote:
>Qov qarI'
>Steven Boozer qarI'
>I want to thank both of you! Steven for the song, Qov for his correction of
>my klingon.
qay'be' "(It's) Not a problem!" (This phrase is often used here when a Terran
would say, "You're welcome". Of course, a Klingon would probably just grunt
an acknowledgment -- if s/he was in a good mood.)
>Qov, if qay' means "be a problem", it also should mean "problem". I ever
>thaught in klingon's no word for "to be" so only "a problem" remains.
Since Qov has just left on her vacation, I'll risk a grammatical comment.
That's not how {qay'} works. "Be X" verbs -- called "qualities" by Okrand
and "stative verbs" by others -- are complete by themselves. Thus, {Doq} "be
red/orange" does not imply the existence of a noun *{Doq} (a "red"?). Your
confusion comes is because of their idiomatic English translations: sometimes
it is "be" + adjective, like {Doq}, sometimes it is "be" + noun, like {qay'}.
If it helps, think of {qay'} as "be problematic", which is somewhat awkward
and less colloquial in English. How does the German DOW translate the two?
>Steven, in the german version of the DS9 episode "Soldiers of the Empire" were
>no subtitles. We klingon learning people seem to be a opressed minority here.
Not subtitles, which everyone can see, but closed captions, which have to be
activated if your television set is equipped with a closed captioning chip.
They are called "closed" because they are not displayed on the screen unless
you turn them on. The captions give the *entire* script for the benefit of
deaf viewers and are in English, so they won't help Germans. They may have
been deleted from the European release. Are Trek episodes usually dubbed
into German by German actors? Videos of the movies are provided with both
subtitles translating the Klingon dialogue and captions of the English (and
occasionally the Klingon, if it is not meant to be translated for the
viewer).
>Olaf 'oH pongwIj'e' sounds better, but is it really klingon? The klingon culture
>is a very direct one so I think a klingon would say "If I say b'elanna jIH
>everyone knows b'elanna's my name exept he's Pakled". I left "'" off "'oH".
I agree with you, but a few on this list don't. Since Okrand has never given
us an example of a Klingon introducing him/herself by name, we're not quite
sure how they do it. Until he does, some prefer not to risk making a mistake
and use the longer, but grammatically correct, "My name is Olaf" form, on the
theory that this at least will always be understood by all Klingons.
>(Please excuse if I made some mistakes. I'm just not the best in english.)
More reason to start writing us in Klingon. Your English, however, is fine;
there were a couple of small mistakes, but it was perfectedly understandable.
We should all speak Klingon so well (or German too, for that matter)!
Voragh