tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed May 19 12:45:14 1999
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RE: [KLBC]ghopoH
- From: "Andeen, Eric" <[email protected]>
- Subject: RE: [KLBC]ghopoH
- Date: Wed, 19 May 1999 12:49:28 -0700
jatlh qultoQ:
> botI' pabQaghwIj;
If you are asking us to correct your grammar, you should say <tItI'> rather
than <botI'>. A verb with a <bo-> prefix makes a statement ("You are
correcting my grammar"), but <tI-> makes a command ("Correct my grammar.").
Also, don't squish nouns together like this. It should be <paq QaghwIj> or
<pab QaghmeywIj>. Finally, remember the Klingon sentence order:
object-verb-subject. <pab QaghwIj> is the thing you want fixed, so it is the
object.
pab QaghmeywIj tItI'.
> chay' /Wheel of Time\ jatlh?
jatlh 'Iv? You are asking how ... somebody says "wheel of time". The
problem is that we have no idea who that somebody is. Klingon has the
perfect tool for this: the suffix <-lu'>. A verb with this suffix has an
"indefinite subject", meaning that the subject is not important, and
anything could stand in for it. This is often translated as passive voice in
English. It is also translated with the pseudo-pronoun "one".
chay' *Wheel of Time* jatlhlu'? -
How is "Wheel of Time" said? -OR-
How does one say "Wheel of Time"?
Also, the verb <mugh> - "translate" would probably be better than <jatlh>
here.
> ghopoHlutchenghaghQuj lIDaj'a' vay'?
vIDajbe' jIH. vItobHa'.
Klingon does have some compound nouns, and it may be legal to combine nouns
to make new compound nouns. However, Klingon is *not* German. I tend to
think Klingon is similar to English in that there is rarely a need to squish
two words together into a new compound, and just leaving the two words as
separate words almost always works. In any case, sticking *five* nouns
together is just really not a good idea.
For a short phrase to translate "Wheel of Time", I would probably go with
<poH gho>. It doesn't make any sense without an explanation, but then
neither does "Wheel of Time".
> [\Wheel of Time RPG/~/circle`time`story`creation`game\] vIchenmoH;
Daj... tlhIngan Hol Dalo''a'? tlhIngan Hol qel'a' Quj?
> lIDajchugh, chojatlhvaj;
Adverbials like <vaj> go before the verb, not after it as suffixes.
> jItammoH'egh <g>.
bItam'eghmoH. Remember to use proper suffix order.
> pIm 'ach lugh mughghaghwI' ?
pIm nuq? jIyajbe'.
Also, you should probably not be using <-ghach> at all at this point trying
to learn Klingon. Save that for when you are comfortable with the basics.
> {val ghot,
> Ha'DIbaH valbe' lIm Qob ghot}???
Close enough to get the idea. The point of the quote is the distinction
between "a person" and "people", and this does not come through if you use
just plain <ghot> for both. For "a person", try <wa' ghot>, and for people,
<ghotpu'>.
Instead of <valbe'>, try <QIp>. <lIm> is "panic", not "panicky", so it does
not work in this context. Instead of saying "people are panicky ...", you
could say "people continuously panic, ...". If you can get it to fit (and
you can; see below), this will work fine.
Also, in the second sentence, you've stacked three different "adjectives"
onto the same noun. Your dictionary does not tell you this, but this is not
grammatically correct. You can only attach one verb acting as an adjective
to a noun. You have to do the rest with <-bogh> clauses. Here's how yours
would work:
QIpbogh Ha'DIbaHmey 'ej lImtaHbogh 'ej Qobbogh ...
Finally, you've stuck two noun phrases next to each other to indicate
equivalence, which does not work. It's like saying "People animals." in
English. It might (possibly) be understood, but it's certainly not correct.
The way Klingon does this is with pronouns. Here's how your sentence would
turn out:
QIpbogh Ha'DIbaHmey 'ej lImtaHbogh 'ej Qobbogh bIH ghotpu''e'.
pagh
Beginners' Grammarian
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