tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Jan 05 17:22:39 2000

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RE: KLBC: A small introduction of me.

Welcome to the list, Paul.

jatlh Paul Reinerfelt:

> Hi!
> 
> I thought I should get out of lurking and
> present myself and exercise a little Klingon
> by doing so.
> 
> I won't enter the usual trap of "My name
> is..." in Klingon so I'll just use English
> for that. My name is Paul Reinerfelt and I'm 
> from Sweden. I don't think I will choose a
> Klingon name but I think I'll spell Paul like
> it was in Klingon, {paul}, because the
> Klingon pronunciation is much closer to the
> Swedish pronunciation than the English is.

Klingon phonology doesn't deal well with two vowels next to each other, so a
Klingon would probably try to pronounce your name as <pa'ul>. It's your
name, though, so it's up to you to decide how best to use it.

> {<Lund> DuSaQ'a'Daq De'QeD jIHaD}
> "I study computer science at Lund University."

Verb prefix: <vIHaD>.

> {rut De'QeD jIghojmoH je}
> "Sometimes I also teach computer science."

Same thing - <vIghojmoH>.

> Before anyone points out that I have made an
> error with "computer science" let me point
> out that I tried to translate from Swedish
> and  the Swedish word for computer science is
> more literally translated as "datalogy" (like
> zoology or biology, i.e. the lore of data)).
> That's why I used {De'QeD} instead of
> {De'wI'QeD}.

qay'be'. Many English speakers just assume that what we call "computer
science" would be commonly called <De'wI'QeD> in Klingon, when <De'QeD> is
just as likely. Either one makes perfect sense, and would at worst make you
look like a foreigner, which we all are.

> On a similar note, I and some other 
> students were writing an advertisement 
> poster for clothes with the logo of the 
> department (computer science) on them. We 
> thought of making it multi-lingual with 
> as many languages as possible. Naturally, 
> I would like to include Klingon. The phrase
> we want to use is "Buy computer science
> clothes!". What I came up with is:
> {De'tejSutpu' tIje'}, that is  "You will buy
> computer scientist clothes!". Is this
> correct? (Same notes about "computer science"
> as above.)

majQa'. vIparHa'. I do have some comments, though. First, it's probably best
not to combine <De'tej> and <Sut> - they work just fine as seperate nouns.
Also, <Sut> is defined as "clothing", and in English "clothing" is a mass
noun like "food" or "equipment". As such, it probably can't take a plural,
so you should drop the <-pu'> and change the prefix to <yI->:

De'tej Sut yIje'.

> By the way, why is "computer" translated
> "my data"? I would have been much less
> surprised if it had been something like "one 
> who computes". (maybe {SImwI'}, "one who 
> calculates"?)

<De'wI'> is a word all by itself, and the <-wI'> is *not* the possessive
suffix, so it is not "my data". Klingon does have a number of words like
<De'wI'> and <DeghwI'> that *appear* to be made up of a noun and the *verb*
suffix <-wI'>, meaning "one who does, thing which does". It's obviously not
the verb suffix now, but we can speculate that the word may have originated
from an earlier verb plus suffix combination.

In any case, <De'wI'> is the word for computer, and the <-wI'> is just a
syllable in the word, not any kind of suffix.

> Another question: Is there a way to say "do"
> as in Yoda's (I know, wrong universe) famous
> "Do or do not, there is no try" in Klingon?
> The sentiment strikes me as something that
> would appeal to a Klingon.

The English word "do" is used in a lot of weird grammatical constructions,
and doesn't have an exact parallel in Klingon, but for this particular idea,
Klingon has a perfect word: <ta'> - "accomplish". I would translate Yoda's
quote as:

yIta' pagh yIta'be'. yInIDQo' neH.

I believe this quote has been translated on this list before, and I suspect
my version matches previous attempst pretty closely.


pagh
Beginners' Grammarian

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