tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Jun 26 15:33:20 1998
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Re: early morning
- From: Robyn Stewart <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: early morning
- Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 15:27:29 -0700 (PDT)
---Lothar Khan Irrgang wrote:
>
> nuqneH
>
> I actually translate an old italian warrior song.
>
> There is a sentence I have a problem with.
>
> It says: In the early morning, we met our enemy.
>
> How do I say: "In the early morning"?
>
> "we met our enemy" is: jaghma' DIqIHpu' ,I guess.
>
> Can you help?
jaghma' DIqIHpu' is "we will have met our enemies"
or "we had met our enemies" or "we have met our enemies" all referring
to the first time, where you learn the identity of your enemies. You
probably MEAN:
{jaghma' wIghom} - We met our enemy.
Don't use perfective unless you mean perfective. Simple past tense is
not perfective.
In English if I say "I met my boss at a bar" you don't know unless I
tell you whether I mean that I schmoozed with a stranger at a bar, and
he hired me or whether I and my employer both happened to go out to
the same bar. In Klingon {ghom} refers to meeting, coming together,
rendezvous-ing, while qIH covers the special case "I'd never met him
before."
For "in the early morning" I suggest {jajlo'} "at dawn" {taghpa' jaj}
"before daybreak" (the new Klingon day starts at dawn) {qaSDI'
ramjep} "as soon as midnight had passed" or another form describing
when exactly in the morning you meant.
I wouldn't go translating any old Italian war songs until your grasp
of the grammar and vocabulary is such that you can almost instantly
find words to express your own thoughts. THEN worry about translating
the thoughts of ancient Italian warriors.
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