tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Mar 23 17:19:10 2000

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RE: KLBC: An Introduction and some questions...



jatlh George Madison:

> Greetings!

nuqneH?

> "George Madison" 'oH pongwIj'e'

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

qay'be'. yImoDQo'.
Don't be in a hurry.

muyonchu'bogh pong yIwIv.
Choose a name that completely satisfies you.

> 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}. 

Daj . . .

> [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.]

It's perfectly appropriate, but do it in Klingon when you can.

> 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.

That's what I am here for, even if a little late. yIjaq! yIQaghvIpQo'! Be
bold! Don't be afraid to make mistakes!

> 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!}

Quite good. <-meH> is the perfect suffix here, and beginners usually have
trouble with it.

You do have a little prefix trouble, though. The imperative prefix <yI->
should go on the main verbs, not the verbs with <-meH>. The command in "Live
to Ride" is "Live", not "Ride". "Ride" is the purpose that is achieved by
living. 

So if you put the <yI-> prefix on the main verbs, what prefix goes on the
<-meH> verbs? In this case, it's <bI->. "Live to Ride" basically means "Live
in order that you ride" - you are the one doing the riding.

bIlIghmeH yIyIn! bIyInmeH yIlIgh!
In order that you Ride, Live!  In order that you Live, Ride!


> "Ride free!" - {yIlIghmeH tlhab!}

This one requires a bit more thought. What exactly does "Ride free!" mean?
Does it mean that you ride in order to be free? Does it mean you ride
because you are free? You are free because you ride? You are free while you
ride? Here's my suggestions:

bItlhabmeH yIlIgh - Ride in order to be free
bItlhabmo' yIlIgh - Ride because you are free
bIlIghmo' bItlhab - You are free because you ride
bItlhabtaHvIS yIlIgh - Ride while you are free

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

None. We have quite a bit of infomration on Klingon space travel, but very
little on planetary travel.

> 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"?

This is where we are a little stuck for vocabulary. <muD ral bey> is
definitely a good term for "thunder". <chal bey> or <'eng bey> would also be
good, I think. The term Klingons use is almost certainly different, but we
don't know what it is, so we have to make do with our own.

I would *not* suggest shoving the words together into a compound. Only nouns
can form compounds, and even then it's usually better to keep the words
seperate.

<qem> is fine, but <qemwI'> would probably be better. Adding <-wI'> changes
the whole phrase from a sentence - "It brings thunder" - to a noun phrase -
"thunder bringer".

> 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.

Krankor is right - don't go changing parts of speech. Okrand himself has
said that nouns *cannot* be used as verbs.

You do have an alternative, though - <jachwI' qIj>.

> 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)

That was a well thought out argument, but unfortunately it doesn't work. The
problem is that any natural language - and any artifical language designed
to look like a natural language - has far too many exceptions and special
cases and general weirdness to make these kinds of generallizations.
<De'wI'>, <DeghwI'>, and <HerghwI'> are exceptions - interesting specimens
left over from an earlier period in the language's development, or created
and accepted despite their ungrammatical origins.

As I said above, I think <jachwI' qIj> works just fine.

> Donning my {Sut meQlaHbe'},


pagh
Beginners' Grammarian

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