tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Jan 22 23:00:35 2000
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Re: About KLItlh.htm
ja' Nicolau Rodrigues <[email protected]>:
>Recently I copied KLItlh.htm from www.kli.org to practice a bit with
>official Klingon. This document has a real alien flavour, but it also
>has some mistakes or sentences I can't understand:
I agree that there are a couple of "stylistic" points in it, but I don't
think any of them are mistakes.
> 1st paragraph, 4th line: the word {QujwI'pu'} is used for "actors",
>{Quj} is the verb "to play a game", in English "to play" is means too
>"to act (in a theatre)", but I haven't seen this meaning in Klingon
>before. I think {DawI'pu'} would be another solution.
{DawI'pu'} is an accepted way to say "actors". But doesn't the page
say {Dabogh QujwI'pu'}? "Gameplayers who act" seems fine.
> 1st par., 7th line: {yotpu'} = "invaded", why not {yotta'}? The same
>question for {Qatpu'} (in 2nd par.), I propose {Qatta'}. {-pu'} means
>"past", while KLI is still in these countrys, and the proposite of KLI
>is expand, so I believe {-ta'} expresses better.
{-pu'} indicates perfective, which is *not* the same as past tense.
See the list's FAQ for a discussion of the difference between the two.
The suffixes {-pu'} and {-ta'} both have exactly the same "completed"
meaning, with {-ta'} giving an extra indication that the action is an
intentional one. I don't think the language can be said to have acted
on purpose, even metaphorically.
> 1st par., 8th line, & 2nd par., 1st line: {lutu'lu'}, I'm sorry but
>I can't translate it, perhaps the impersonal construction {tu'lu'}
>would be clearer. In TKD (page 39) this special form accompanies a
>third plural person without taking any prefix.
TKD isn't always completely accurate. In KGT (pages 168 and following)
we learn that leaving off the {lu-} prefix is a common error which is
often tolerated without comment, but it *is* an error.
> 3rd par., 6th line: {ghItlh ghItlhwI'}= "the writer of the text", is
>just a question style, but what about {ghItlh chenmoHwI'}, it isn't so
>repetitive...
Repetition doesn't seem to be something to be avoided in Klingon.
> 4th par., 2nd line: I think between {ghomuv!} and the rest would be
>a dot, cause these are two different sentences.
An exclamation point serves to end a sentence just as well as a period.
> I also would consider the word {yejHaD}, "institute". It's a compound
> noun consisting in {yej}="assembly" and {HaD}="to study". I believe it's
>not the usual way to make compund nouns in Klingon, e.g. {Qulpa'},
>{QongDaq}, {SuyDuj},... so the normal order is Determined Determining
{yejHaD} is an official Klingon word. Okrand verified it long ago (and
apologized for its being left out of the dictionary, an oversight which
has been corrected in KGT).
> These are the questions, for the unclear words I tried to propose an
>alternative one but I don't want to teach nobody, I want to learn, so
>please explain me the things I haven't understood.
DaH bIyajchoH'a'?
-- ghunchu'wI' 'utlh