tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Mar 19 16:49:11 2000

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KLBC: An Introduction and some questions...



Greetings!

"George Madison" 'oH pongwIj'e'

I haven't come up with a Klingon name yet, so that will have to do. ;)

I've come to be interested in learning more about {tlhIngan Hol} via a
route perhaps different than most... I wanted to come up with a name for my
motorcycle in {tlhIngan Hol}. [I'm not sure if explaining _why_ would be
appropriate here; if it is, I'll do so later. If not, anyone interested can
e-mail me about it.]

I come to this without much experience but a fairly high degree of
enthusiasm, so if I have made some horrible obvious mistakes, I'd like to
beg indulgence in advance. Of course, there are some things I'm not sure of
and would like some input and guidance on.

Before I dive into the names, there are two biker stock phrases I have
tried to translate. Given the way they're used, I figured that they should
be done as an imperative in Klingon:

"Live to Ride, Ride to Live" - {yIyInmeH lIgh! yIlIghmeH yIn!}

"Ride free!" - {yIlIghmeH tlhab!}

Any ideas on how to relate "motorcycle" in Klingon?  (grin)

One of the first ideas I came up with for a motorcycle name was
"Thunderbringer", which I have worked out as {muD ral bey qem}, or
literally "it brings the howl of violent weather." Given there's no word we
know of so far specifically for "storm" or "thunder", I wound up with the
locution {muD ral bey} for "thunder." What I'm curious about here is in the
case of {muD ral} "violent weather" to mean "storm" -- is this a case where
one could combine the words as {*muDral*} forming a "compound" word? Or
even perhaps slam the whole thing together {*muDralbey*} to mean "thunder"?

Another idea I had ties into something I saw while browsing the archives
and may well raise the hackles of grammarians, but I think I have a valid
point to make.

The idea is "Black Growler" -- loosely translating {bey} as "growl"
instead of "howl." The problem is that Klingon doesn't seem to have a
mechanism from getting from the noun {bey} to another noun denoting the
person or thing that is producing the howl.

My idea -- which I realized was not "authorized" by anything explicit in
canon -- was {*beywI' qIj*}. I originally dropped this idea upon reading
one of Captain Krankor's columns in which it was mentioned that one cannot
assume nouns from verbs -- and figured that the converse was also true. The
unfortunate result of this was the rather clumsy expression {bey
jatlh'eghmoH qIjwI'} -- which (I think ;) literally means "black thing
which causes itself to speak a howl." UGH.

Now the argument that may upset the grammarians... I feel that {*beywI'
qIj*} may be correct usage, though my proof is admittedly a bit thin. In
TKD and KGT, we have the following word pairs:

	{De'} - data, information (n) / {De'wI'} - computer (n)
	{Degh} - helm (n) / {DeghwI'} - helmsman (n)
	{Hergh} - medicine (n) / {HerghwI'} - pneumatic hypo (n)

I realize that the standard explanation is that there is a "lost" verb that
the "-wI'" form is an artifact of, and nothing more should be read into it.
I would like to argue there's another explanation that would reveal a
useful tool in the language.

Note that normally when used with nouns, the -wI' suffix can only be used
as a posessive with nouns capable of using language -- a category that
data, helm and medicine do not fall into. My essential argument is that
when this suffix is used with a noun _not_ capable of using language, it
creates a "do-er" noun -- that is, {bey} "howl" becomes {*beywI'*}
"howler", {De'} "data" becomes {De'wI'} "data-er" or computer, etc.

In these cases, the -wI' carries with it the verb _notion_ of "thing which
does", transforming a noun describing an item or action into the noun which
_USES_ the item or _PERFORMS_ the action -- which otherwise seems very
difficult to say otherwise unless there is a specific word defined. And
since -wI' only acts as a possessive with nouns that can use language,
there doesn't seem to be a great chance this will be misunderstood. I also
think the idea appeals to the ideal of Klingon as an efficient language,
especially given how common the concept is.

I could be all wet here -- but if there is a more efficient locution for
"Black Growler" than {bey jatlh'eghmoH qIjwI'} I'd like to know what it is.
The only other possibility I can think of would be a construct using {ta'}
"accomplish" -- perhaps {bey ta' qIjwI'}. Despite that, I still think
{*beywI' qIj*} is superior and more useful, at least in theory and my own
mind. (grin)

Donning my {Sut meQlaHbe'},

George Madison

 ----
[> George Madison <*> [email protected] <*> Just say NO to razors! <]
[> It's a BEAR thing -- you wouldn't understand <*> Copyright 2000 <]



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