tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun May 23 08:02:16 1999

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Re: first post



Ed Heil wrote:

: As my first post to the Hol list, not having yet defined a Klingon
: personality or learned very much, may I ask the experienced listemes
: to take a look at my first Klingon sentence (below, in sig) and point
: out any mistakes I may have made?
 
Welcome to the list, Ed.  Our Beginning Grammarian, pagh, will no doubt
respond
too, but as he's been fairly busy for the last couple of weeks I thought I
would step in.  I remember how anxious I was for feedback after my first
tlhIngan Hol post.
 
:              "QuchwIj Dayachqang'a' bang-wIj?"
:        Klingon for "Want to stroke my forehead, babe?"

"Are you willing to stroke my forehead, my love?"  

This is pretty good, except for the last word.  {-wIj}, without the hyphen, is
used only for those items incapable of using language: i.e. things (including
animals), like foreheads.  Use {-wI'} for people.  Klingons are very touchy
about this and will take offence if you refer to them as a thing.  Many
beginners are confused by this distinction at first; Okrand's explanation in
TKD could have been a bit clearer.  In fact, if you want to keep the
colloquial
tone of "babe", omit the possessive suffix entirely:

  QuchwIj Dayachqang'a', bang?

Okrand did just this in one of the Klingon sentences he provided for the
British television magazine, Radio Times:

  HIchop, bang.
  Give us a kiss, love. ("Bite me, love.")

Finally for the sake of completeness, a more literal translation of the
English
"do you want to ..." would be: 

  QuchwIj Dayach DaneH'a', bangwI'?
  Do you want to stroke my forehead, my love?


-- 
Voragh                       
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons 



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