tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Jan 10 10:36:19 1999
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Re: KLBC: HovqIj jun Hov wov
mujang HovqIj:
>> rut ngaDmoH wej 'uS.
HIvqa' veqlargh. {lungaDmoH} is required here, of course.
>> rut vIHbe'chu'meH wej 'uS ngaDmoHwI' lo'lu'.
>
>I kind of like this one. It seems understandable. I only have a question
>about <wej 'uS ngaDmoHwI'> = "three leg stabilizer"/"stabilizer of three
>legs". <wej 'uS ngaDmoHwI'> seems to be a strange kind of N-N
>construction. For N2 is a transitive verb which became a noun, the <wej
>'uS> seem to still belong to the former verb.
>wej 'uS ngaDmoH - it stabilizes three legs
>==> wej 'uS ngaDmoHwI' - something that stabilizes three legs
>I hope you can understand what I want to say. So, can we interpret the
>N-N construction so loosely? Please enlighten me.
The "Romulan hunter-killer probe" mentioned in the Star Trek: Klingon
CD-ROM game is translated with a N-N phrase even more likely to be
interpreted as having the first noun as an object. I don't remember
it perfectly, but it's something like {romuluSngan Sambogh 'ej HoHbogh
nejwI'}. I take this as an indication that my {wej 'uS ngaDmoHwI'} is
just fine for what I want it to say.
>> >Oh, you got me wrong here. With <qawHaqqoq> I meant "film". "so-called
>> >memory banks" seemed to be intelligible.
>>
>> *I* didn't have a clue that you meant "film".
>
>What did *you* think the sentence was to mean? How would you say "film"?
I was considering a digital camera with a removable memory card. If you
want to translate "film" precisely, something with {mep beQ} might make
sense.
>> We *do* have a word for "picture" -- but it's a verb: {cha'}.
>
><cha'> is useful in many cases, but not in all cases. I've used it
>myself in my original post to describe "pictures"/"photos". Anyway, it
>wasn't useful when I had to find a word I could use for "camera". If we
>had a word for "picture" I would have said something like <"picture"
>lIngwI'> or <"picture" lIngmeH jan> etc. Yet we don't have a noun for
>"picture".
What's wrong with {cha'wI'}? "Thing which displays {a picture}" sounds
pretty close to what you want. :-) If you think it might be confused
with {jIH} "monitor" or {HotlhwI'} "scanner, projector", then you might
try {cha'bogh nav}.
>So I had to give a rather long description of a camera first
>before I could find a name for "camera". I used <DoS taDmoHwI'> but I
>could also have used <qolotlh> and it would have been understood. (Just
>think of the car "Christine"...)
Um...what? You lost me completely here. Until you presented the name
{DoS taDmoHwI'} I was barely following your explanation; it was the name
itself that clued me in to the idea of taking photographs.
>Now you can argue that nevertheless I found a way to say what I wanted
>to say and that I'm just a lazy person who needs one Klingon word for
>each English word.
Actually, I'd argue that you went to a lot of unnecessary trouble to say
something that can be expressed much more simply with one Klingon word,
or maybe two.
>Usually I'd reply that you were wrong, that I liked
>recasting, that it was kind of fun, the nice little difference between
>learning Klingon and a Terran language etc. However, a word for
>"picture" still remains in one of the top positions on my wishlist for
>new words. I just need it quite frequently. But I'll have to deal with
>what we have, just as everyone else.
I'm of the opinion that what we have in this area is perfectly adequate.
-- ghunchu'wI'