tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu May 06 17:01:16 1999

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RE: KLBC

jatlh Chuck Nolan:

> Greetings,
>     First, I posted a writing a short time ago simply titled 
> "my fight". I would like to thank those that replied and showed 
> a few corrections needed to be made. I lost the names of those 
> when I hit the wrong button. 

>    Second, I see it is common for a Klingon House to have a motto. 
> I have set mine to say... "Success and go with Honor." Someone 
> told me the original was not correct, (it appears in my E-Mail 
> signature.)

>   I have came up with four ways to say it.

>   Qapla' 'ej batlh ghoS  (original)
>   Qapla' 'ej batlh SughoS
>   Qapla' 'ej batlhqu' SughoS  (placing "with Honor" as emphatic)
>   Qapla' 'ej batlh SughoSqu'  (placing "You go" as emphatic)

I would start by just placing <Qapla'> in a sentence all by itself. It's an
exclamation, and it doesn't sound quite right putting an "and" after it.

For the second part, whether you realize it or not, "Go with honor" is a
command in English. You need to make it one in Klingon as well. When
addressing one person, it would be <batlh yIghoS>. For multiple people, it
would be <batlh peghoS>.

You may also wish to consider if "go" is the word you want to use here. The
English word "go" has a lot of additional meaning layered into it, and it's
difficult to tell what, if any, comes out in the Klingon <ghoS> and <jaH>.
The Klingon <ghoS> is all about proceeding along a physical course, and we
don't have any evidence that it can be used metaphorically. <jaH> is not as
well defined, but seems to be about physical motion.

As an example, consider the English examples "I'm going to eat", "Go ahead",
and "Go with Maltz". The first would probably be translated in Klingon as
something like <tugh jISop> or <jISop 'e' vIHech>, the second would be
<yIruch>, and the third would be <matlh yItlhej>.

So you really should consider some alternatives to <ghoS>. Here are my
suggestions. Some of them are quite different, but I'm trying to give you a
wide range of ideas to think about.

batlh peruch
batlh pevang
batlh petaH
batlh peSuv
batlh Qu'raj tIta'
batlh wo' yItoy'

>    Would any one of the above statements be correct?
>  qatlho'
> Qapla''ej batlh ghoS!


pagh
Beginners' Grammarian

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