tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Jul 02 17:25:56 2000
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RE: pongwIj QrIS
- From: Eric Andeen <[email protected]>
- Subject: RE: pongwIj QrIS
- Date: Sun, 2 Jul 2000 17:25:34 -0700
Welcome to the list, QrIS. My name is pagh, and I am the current Beginners'
Grammarian for the list. It's my job to help new people learn Klingon.
Whenever you have a post you want help with, mark it with a KLBC in the
subject line.
jatlh QrIS:
> pongwIj QrIS (Chris)
>
> I don't know if that is grammatically correct or not,
> correct if I'm wrong.
Close. You've said something roughly equivalent to "My name Chris." What's
missing is the "is". In Klingon, that's done with pronouns. The Dictionary
has a section on this called 'Pronouns as "to be"'. I think it's 6.3; if
not, it's in that general area.
The way Klingon generally says "X is Y" is <Y 'oH X'e'>, with variations for
"I am ..." or "they are ..." instead of "it is ...". In your case, it would
be <QrIS 'oH pongwIj'e'>.
Also note that <QrIS> doesn't really fit in with Klingon phonology as we
know it. We've never seen a Klingon syllable start with two consonants -
they alwasy start with just one. Since you're trying to go for something
that sounds like "Chris", though, you can just drop the <r>. The big <Q>
often sounds like "kr" to English speakers. For example, Captain Kruge's
name is <Qugh>.
> tlhIngan-Hol muvHa' vInI'pu'
I'm not sure what you mean here. If you've joined the list, you want <muv>
rather than <muvHa'>, and I don't know what the <nI'> is supposed to mean.
Here's what I would suggest instead:
tlhIngan-Hol jabbI'IDghom vImuvta'.
<jabbI'IDghom> is a word we often use on the list for "mailing list". It
might not be the best word, but it works.
> tlhIngan Hol vIghoj vItul
maj. This is quite good. You're just missing one thing. <ghoj> and <tul> are
both acting like main verbs in this sentence, and there's nothing to tie
them together. The grammatical tool for that is the pronoun <'e'>. <'e'> is
explained in detail in TKD section 6.2.5. Basically, <'e'> represents the
previous sentence. So you can say <tlhIngan Hol vIghoj 'e' vItul>. This
first part - <tlhIngan Hol vIghoj> - means "I learn Klingon", and the second
part - <'e' vItul> means "I hope that ...". Put them together and you get
"I hope that I learn Klingon.".
pagh
Beginners Grammarian
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