tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Feb 04 06:43:37 1999

Back to archive top level

To this year's listing

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]

Re: Two things...

charghwI' jatlh:
> > To express that thought, I'd just say:
> > 
> > Qoch qechmeylIj.
> > 
> > Your ideas disagree.

loD Doq jatlh:
> That doesn't work. That's a statement, not a noun. If I was going to use a
> statement, I would have used <'obe' ghajHa' qechmeyraj>, or "your thoughts
> do not have order".

I'd just like to point out that I think you have a basic 
misunderstanding of the suffix {-Ha'}. You want {ghajbe'}, not 
{ghajHa'}. {-Ha'} is not simple negation. It adds one of two 
different flavors to the concept of negation. One flavor implies 
that the action is undoing something, as in {So'wI' yIchu'Ha'} 
"Disengage the cloaking mechanism". It was engaged. You are 
undoing the action of engaging it. 

The other flavor implies that the action is done badly or wrongly
as in {jIyajHa'pu'} "I have misunderstood". It is not that I 
merely don't understand. I thought I understood, but the 
understanding I believed to exist was wrong.

If I am a guard with the key to a door to release a prisoner and 
you yell from a distance, "Whatever you do, DON'T RELEASE THE 
PRISONER!" and I can't quite hear you, when you get to me and 
ask me what I thought you said, {jIyajbe'pu'.} But if you yell 
the same message to me and because I can't hear you very well, I 
assume you are yelling at me to release the prisoner, so I 
unlock the door and he escapes, then when you arrive, you ask me 
why I unlocked the door after you told me not to, {jIyajHa'pu'}. 
There is a big difference in meaning between these two suffixes. 
You do not exhibit evidence that you understand that.

Consider the difference between {naDbe'} and {naDHa'} or between 
{quvbe'} and {quvHa'}.

> However, we are not trying to tell the people we are
> talking to how scatter-brained that they are, we're telling them to toss
> out ideas as the come to them. I can't figure out how to do that. The best
> thing I can come up with is <rut qechmeyraj tuSovmoH>, or "Let me know your
> thoughts, sometimes", but it *still* doesn't work. 

That is a statement, not a command, and it means, "Sometimes you 
(plural) cause me to know your ideas." Anyway, please don't 
blame me for misunderstanding what you wanted. You didn't 
describe your context very well.

What you want is difficult enough to express that Okrand did it 
rather poorly in ST3. For the subtitle "Kill one of them. I 
don't care which one." He said, {wa' yIHoH. jISaHbe'.} That just 
seemed a little vague to me and I didn't like it, but when I 
tried to do a better job myself, I saw the problem. I especially 
respect that this line was one of the first lines Okrand wrote 
with his new language. There was a lot he had not figured out 
yet.

For your intent, I'd just say something like {tugh 
mawuqnIS. qechmey chu' DIpoQ. pejatlh.} 
 
> --- loD Doq

charghwI' 'utlh

Back to archive top level