tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Dec 15 15:41:23 1999
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RE: KLBC: wa'Hu'
- From: "Andeen, Eric" <[email protected]>
- Subject: RE: KLBC: wa'Hu'
- Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1999 16:42:47 -0700
ghel ijeyD. jatlh:
> Sooo..I take it that yesterday can be either
> one OR two words?? is that right?
>
> wa' Hu' or
> wa'Hu'
>
> ??????
Good question. <wa'Hu'> can obviously be a single word - it's in the
dictionary that way. Based on the fact that <ben>, <nem>, <waQ>, <wen>,
<Hu'>, and <leS> are all nouns, we have every reason to believe they can
also be used on their own, with or without a number in front of them. If
there is a convention for when to use a space and when not to, I do not know
what it is. I tend to put in a space whenever there's more than one number
word involved (e.g. cha'vatlh wejmaH Hut ben), but that's just my own
preference.
The other question to consider is: does this really matter? The ASCII
characters that we use for Klingon are NOT written Klingon or even a decent
romanized system of it. They are a transcription system for *spoken*
Klingon, and in most spoken languages, word boundaries are not as well
defined as they are in written form. Say <wa'Hu'>. Then say <wa' Hu'>. Do
they sound consistently, noticeably different when you say them? They don't
for me.
So to summarize: yes, both <wa'Hu'> and <wa' Hu'> are perfectly OK for
"yesterday".
pagh
Beginners' Grammarian
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