tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Mar 04 16:53:04 1999

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RE: KLBC: Danger Will Robinson! Newbie on the list.



Welcome to the list, ghItlhwI'. You've obviously heard the whole BG thing
before, so I'll spare you :)

jatlh ghItlhwI':

> Greetings!

> I have been a subscriber for about a year now. I know it's a long time 
> before I plucked up the courage to send a post. But here I am. Let me 
> introduce myself. I'm called Claire, but my Klingon name is ghItlhwI'. I 
> live near Newcastle in the UK. I'll tell you more about myself when I 
> have learned to tell you in Klingon.

> For a competition, I had to think of a good use for a tribble. 'oghwI' 
> challenged me to translate it into Klingon. This is what I came up with.

> yIHnaQ - lanmey Qatlh SIch Say'meH.

> It's meant to say Tribble on a Stick - for cleaning difficult to reach 
> places.

> I did not know how to convey the thought of the tribble being on the 
> stick. So I thought tribble stick would convey the same meaning, as it 
> does for painstick. 

> How did I do? 

I don't think I'd understand <yIHnaQ> in general, but in this context it's
fine. I can imagine a Klingon TV commercial or a magazine add with <yIHnaQ>
in very large type and the Klingon equivalent of (tm) right next to it.

For the rest of it, you got all the right words, but you didn't quite put
them together correctly. You managed to pick some very difficult grammar to
start with, so I won't deal with all of it.

lanmey Qatlh SIch Say'meH.

<lan> is a verb meaning "place", as in "he placed his hand on my knee, and I
slugged him." The noun for "place/location" is <Daq>. <Daqmey Qatlh> is fine
for "difficult places", but <Daqmey Qatlh SIch> does not work for "difficult
to reach places". It turns out that this is a very difficult thing to
express in Klingon, so it's probably better to just say "difficult places".
Also, <Say'> is a verb meaning "be clean". To clean something else is
<Say'moH>. So what you wind up with for the whole thing is:

yIHnaQ - Daqmey Qatlh Say'moHmeH.

I'd say you did pretty well.


pagh
Beginners' Grammarian



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