tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Mar 19 16:35:28 1998

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RE: My Handle...

Names are personal, so you can do pretty much whatever you want and
nobody will complain. If, however, you want a literal translation that
follows the rules, I have a few suggestions. You are on the right track,
but not quite there yet.

First, capitalize those S's. In the writing system we use for tlhIngan
Hol, <S> is a letter, and <s> means nothing at all. Also, most Klingon
syllables follow the pattern <consonant> <vowel> <consonant>, and just
plain <consonant> <vowel> is less common. Some people add a glottal stop
<'> to the end of a syllable with a bare vowel when making up a name. So
you may want to consider <bo'So> or <boSo'>. Read the section in The
Klingon Dictionary on pronunciation to find out how this affects
pronunciation of your name.

Second, combining verbs and nouns is not a good idea. If you want to
express the idea of a healthy mind, leave the two words separate: <yab
pIv>. The word order here (which you would have had right in your
attempt if you included the space) is interesting - when a verb like
<pIv> (be healthy) follows a noun, it describes that noun. 

Also, the suffix <-'a'> (as you are using it) is a noun suffix, and you
want a verb suffix to express the idea of "really healthy". The perfect
suffix for the job is <-qu'>. So a really healthy mind would be <yab
pIvqu'>.

Finally, <boSo yab pIvqu'> is not "Bozo the Really Sane" or "Bozo with
the really healthy mind"; it is "Bozo's really healthy mind". I am
guessing you are Bozo himself, rather than Bozo's brain. You could
modify your original idea into something like "Bozo who has a really
healthy mind", but that gets a bit cumbersome.

You are right: there is no simple word for "sane" in tlhIngan Hol. Your
attempt at finding an alternative was good; you will get better with
practice. If you do a bit more digging, we do have a word for the
opposite of sane: <maw'> means crazy. We also have some verb suffixes
which negate the verb: <-be'> for simple, logical negation, and <-Ha'>,
which means something like "undo" or "do wrongly". Thus, the
possibilites for "sane" are <maw'be'> (not crazy) or <maw'Ha'>
(un-crazy). I tend to think <maw'Ha'> is better for what you are going
for, but the difference is fairly subtle. Also, as noted above, if you
want "really sane", just add a <-qu'>.

So, after way more explanation than you probably wanted, I suggest <boSo
maw'Ha'qu'>.

pagh, whose name has caused much confusion

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Nathan Grange [SMTP:[email protected]]
> Sent:	Thursday, March 19, 1998 4:41 PM
> To:	Multiple recipients of list
> Subject:	My Handle...
> 
> My terran handle is Bozo the Really Sane...
> can anyone help with correct translations
> here's what i have so far...
> no zed's in tlhingan, so Bozo becomes boso
> 
> i couldn't find sane, so here's my cringeifying attempt
> really healthy mind = yabpIv'a'
> 
> so .:
> 
> boso yabpIv'a'
> 
> help me!!!!!!!!!!!!
>

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