tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jun 05 19:44:12 2000
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RE: [KLBC] A poem
- From: Eric Andeen <[email protected]>
- Subject: RE: [KLBC] A poem
- Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2000 19:44:10 -0700
jatlh Doq tera' loD:
> You guys are really helping me learn how to put sentences
> together in the right way. I still have more questions
> though. Heres what youve helped me with so far:
> qaleghDI',
> tIq Doy', qa' Doy' je vIghaj.
> Qu' vIta'nISbogh vISovbe',
ghunchu'wI' had an excellent suggestion for the last line:
nuq vIta'nIS? - What must I do
You could also use:
nuq vIta'? - What shall I do?
> Now I have been working with this one since early
> this morning.
> vIS Qong tlhob SoH jIDaq vaj.
> <So I will ask you in sleep>
> I am hoping that jIDaq is I will. Because the direct
> translation is jIH DichDaq and that is to much. I was
> searching for something more like "I will ask you in
> a dream" but I couldnt find that. Maybe some one has
> something like that.
OK... You've got some of the right elements, but they're not really falling
into place very well.
Adverbials like <vaj> go at the beginning of the sentence.
For the "in a dream" bit, you could ask "while you sleep" or "while you
dream". The way Klingon expresses the idea of "while" is with <-vIS>, which
is a verb suffix. Note that there is a rule with <-vIS> that the suffix
<-taH> always has to be used with <-vIS>. For "while you dream", you have to
start with "you dream". Looking up the right prefix, that's <bInaj>. Then
just add the suffixes and you get <bInajtaHvIS>.
The rest of it then is just "I will ask you". We'll start with "I ask you"
and deal with the "will" later. Klingon has several verbs for asking
questions or making requests, including:
tlhob - ask, request, plead
yu' - interrogate
ghel - ask (a question)
That last one is in Klingon for the Galactic Traveller, a book written a few
years ago, after TKD, and it's probably the one you want. Another trip to
the prefix chart and we get <qaghel> - "I ask you".
And now for the "will" part. Klingon is interesting in that it does not have
grammatical tense. Tense in English is the difference between "I asked you",
"I ask you", and "I shall ask you". English has a few other concepts muddled
up with tense, but basically tense indicates whether an event happens in the
past, present or future. Klingon does not make this distinction at all - an
event happens whenever it happens. So "I will ask you" is the same in
Klingon as "I ask you": <qaghel>. Putting it all together, you get:
vaj bInajtaHvIS qaghel.
pagh
Beginners' Grammarian