tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Feb 17 18:28:04 2000

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RE: KLBC - wa"DIch jInID (First try)

Welcome to the list, HarnIS. You've obviously been lurking for a bit and
have seen the KLBC stuff, so I'll just get to it.

jatlh HarnIS:

> tlhuH'a'
> majaH
> HarnIS jIH
> pIj Satu'
> DaH jIH mu'ang
> jonwI' jIH
> vengmey vIchen ngeD law' tlhIngan Hol vIjatlh nged puS
> Qaghmey vIghaj 'ej Sevmey vIghoj

> jIDoy'

> pItlh

Comments on everything below . . .

> tlhuH'a'
>   deep breath

maj.

> majaH
>   here we go

This doesn't quite work. "Here we go" is an English idiom to start
something. In Klingon, <majaH> just means "We go", in the sense of
(physically) travelling somewhere.

If you wanted to say something like this in Klingon, you could consider
<jIruch> - "I proceed". Klingons, though, value directness and brevity more
than Humans, so a Klingon would probably just start with what he wanted to
say.

> HarnIS jIH
>    my name is HarnIS

This is literally "I am HarnIS", which is fine. If you specifically want to
say "My name is HarnIS", you would have to say <HarnIS 'oH pongwIj'e'>.
Similarly, "I am called HarnIS" would be <HarnIS vIponglu'>. The FAQ has a
good section on names.

> pIj Satu'
>    I have often been watching you (the list collectively)
>    (I trying for "I have been watching you for a while")

<tu'> is "Find, observe, discover, notice", which is not what you are going
for. Instead, use <bej> - "watch". <pIv Sabej> means "I often watch y'all",
which seems to capture your meaning fairly well.

> DaH jIH vI'ang jIH
>    I'm trying for "It is time to reveal myself" (Time 
> as a subject)  but I can't find the word for 
> "jIH mu'ang TIME(noun)" What I think I have here is  
> "Now I reveal myself"

The grammar for reflexives like "myself" is special in Klingon. Instead of
the standard object-verb-subject structure, you use a special verb suffix -
<-'egh>, so you would say:

DaH jI'ang'egh jIH.

As for the "It is time ..." part, I'd just stick with what you have. It's
simple and direct.

> jonwI' jIH
>   I am an engineer

maj. Qu'lIj yIDel. tera'Daq ghot law'vaD jonwI' ponglu', 'ach rut pImqu'
Qu'chaj.

Describe your job. On Earth, many people are called Engineers, but sometimes
their jobs are very different.

> vengmey vIchen ngeD law' tlhIngan Hol vIjatlh nged puS
>    I build cities,  which is easier than speaking Klingon

Good attempt, but a few problems. First, <chen> means "take form", so when
you build a city, the city is the thing to <chen>. What you do is cause it
to take form, so you need the suffix <-moH> - <vengmey vIchenmoH> - "I cause
cities to take form" or "I build cities". It's probably also a good idea to
make this its own sentence and deal with the other stuff in another
sentence.

You have exactly the right idea with the <law'/puS> part, but this
construction can only be used to compare nouns. Neither <vengmey vIchenmoH>
nor <tlhIngan Hol vIjatlh> is a noun, so this doesn't work. Fortunately, you
can make it work with some little changes. I suggested you put the first
part into its own sentence, and now you can basically refer back to it:

vengmey vIchenmoH. Qu'vam ngeD law' X ngeD puS

This says "I build cities. This job is easier than X." The X is a stand in
for the harder part: speaking Klingon. When talking about tasks and
activities as nouns, it's fairly common to use the verb suffix <-meH> and
the noun <Qu'>. <-meH> basically means that the noun or sentence it modifies
has the purpose of accomplishing the verb that the <-meH> is attached to.
For example, a <ghojmeH taj> is a "knife for learning" - often called a
"boy's knife" in English. For "speaking Klingon", I would say: <tlhIngan Hol
vIjatlhmeH Qu'> - literally "The task in order that I speak Klingon". <-meH>
is a hard suffix to bend your mind around since it's pretty different from
English, but once you get the hang of it, it can be a wonderful grammatical
tool. So the whole thing is:

vengmey vIchenmoH. Qu'vam ngeD law' tlhIngan Hol vIjatlhmeH Qu' ngeD puS.

> Qaghmey vIghaj 'ej Sevmey vIghoj
>   I will have errors and I will learn to correct them
>   (bandage = closest I could find for correction)

<Sev> is actually kind of a nice try. However, Klingon really works best as
a language when you think more about verbs than nouns. Instead of trying to
find a noun for "correction", find a verb for "correct", and then use that.
The perfect verb here is <lughmoH> - that's <lugh> for "be correct" plus the
suffix <-moH>, turning it into "cause to be correct". 

So now that you have <lughmoH>, what do you do with it? You could just say:

Qaghmey vIghaj 'ej vIlughmoH - I will have errors and I will correct them.

This doesn't capture your idea of learning to correct them, though. This is
another good place for <-meH>:

... 'ej vIlughmoHmeH jIghoj - ... and I will learn in order to correct them.

> jIDoy'
>   I'm exhausted

Do'Ha'. yIleS.

Good first message. It wasn't perfect, but you're on the right track. Keep
it up!


pagh
Beginners' Grammarian

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