tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Feb 03 12:05:47 1999

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RE: KLBC: Two things...



: jatlh DloraH:
: >> I want to say ~Student of klignon language~
: 
: > "he is a student of the klingon language"
: > tlhIngan Hol ghojwI' ghaH
: 
: Or even better:
: 	tlhIngan Hol ghoj. (or maybe <... ghojlI'> or <... ghojtaH>)
: In English, we often say things like "He is <something>." when we could say
: "He does <something>." In Klingon, it's usually much better style to use the
: second form.
: 
: pagh

For the bare equational statement "he is a student of Klingon", yes.  But sometimes you need to refer to "Klingon (language) students" within a larger clause, then the N1-N2-N3-(etc.) phrase is just right:

	tlhIngan Hol yejHaD muvnIS Hoch tlhIngan Hol ghojwI' 'e' vIHarbej!
	I do believe that every student of Klingon should join the Klingon
	 Language Institute.

where {ghojwI'} "student" is IMHO a bit less clumsy than keeping {ghoj} a verb:

	tlhIngan Hol yejHaD muvnIS tlhIngan Hol ghojbogh Hoch nuv 'e' vIHarbej
	I do believe that every person who studies Klingon should join the Klingon
	 Language Institute.

although the latter is certainly better if I wanted to add yet another noun to the subject string:

	tlhIngan Hol yejHaD muvnIS tlhIngan Hol ghojbogh Hoch tera'ngan nuv 'e' vIHarbej

for "every Terran student of Klingon", although now {nuv} is redundant and can be safely omitted.  Which just goes to show that there's always more than one way to express an idea if you just give it some thought.  

Voragh



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