tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Apr 24 14:20:48 2001

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re: To do or not to do...

ghunchu'wI' already answered this well in terms of specific suggestions for 
these examples. I just want to add a bit of discussion about the root of 
the problem. The root is that English allows us to say things that are so 
vague that you can't translate them into Klingon without getting more 
specific. The whole "How do I say, 'I love you,'?" thread that pops up 
every year or so is a perfect example.

When faced with this, stop trying to translate the vague, abstract concept 
that the English is saying and come up with a specific instance of your 
idea in use in the real world. Pull in context. What is the specific 
context of the statement you want to make in this specific instance? Don't 
look for a generic way to say the vague thing. There isn't one. That's just 
not the way Klingon works.

It flips back the other way when translating as well. Some beginners get 
upset about Klingon because we commonly leave out words that you'd expect 
if you were writing in English. Often you need context to know whether a 
potentially transitive verb has a direct object or not, like:

leghchoH.

That doesn't tell us much, but if I say:

loD bejtaH 'avwI'. ghoS loD. leghchoH.

We know that the man just visually noticed the guard. The guard had been 
watching the man for some time.

Meanwhile, if I said:

pa' wovqu'vo' tlheD SuvwI'. wej lIS mInDu'lIj. loS. leghchoH.

Now, we know that the warrior began to see. No particular direct object 
here.

So, it is easy for a beginner to be bothered by this vagueness in Klingon 
concerning who is doing what.

This is a key difference between the two languages. Sometimes Klingon is 
vague about who is doing what and you have to figure that out from context. 
leghchoH. We know exactly what is happening. We just don't necessarily know 
exactly who is doing it or to whom it is being done.

Meanwhile, in English, we are often vague about exactly what we are doing, 
though we much more commonly are specific about who is doing it. "I love 
you." We know I'm doing it and we know I'm doing it to you, but then again, 
exactly what am I doing? Am I feeling fondly toward you as a sibling or 
parent or as my child? Am I lusting after you as a potential mate? Am I 
just looking for a favor? Am I appreciating a favor you just did? Do I just 
like you a whole lot? Am I trying to get you into my bed or my bowling 
team? Do I want to build a home where we both can live, or am I just 
looking for a date this Saturday? Well, until we have more context, we 
don't know.

This is a big piece of what I mean when I say that English is noun-centric 
and Klingon is verb-centric. If I walk up to you and say in English, 
"Telephone," that is a lone noun and you understand it as a complete 
sentence. You know that there is a telephone call for you and I'd like you 
to go to the phone. If I walk up to a Klingon and say {ghogh HablI'}, he 
will look at me like I'm an idiot.

In English, we say, "FAX it to me." FAX is a device. It is a noun. We use 
it as a verb, but it really is a noun. We verbify nouns all the time 
because in English, we think a lot about nouns and verbs are there pretty 
much just to fill in the gaps between our nouns.

In Klingon, a verb is a sentence. Nouns are there just to clear up a few 
minor details. Action is everything, and we want to know a lot about the 
action. That's why nouns get five types of suffix and verbs get nine, plus 
rovers. My version of the word list has 984 verbs in it and 1250 nouns. 
Meanwhile, the nouns include proper names, and each verb has many more 
meanings because of the suffixes. This gives us a LOT more ways to express 
a verbal concept than there are to express nouns. I would expect an English 
dictionary to have a LOT more nouns than verbs in it.

But I'm rambling.

When you don't know how to express a verb in Klingon, most typically this 
is because the English verb is either so vague that Klingon requires that 
you get more specific about what you mean, or the English word is of a 
class of jargon that is isolated to a topic that Klingon has not grown into 
yet, as did cooking and music words before KGT.

pItlh.

charghwI'

> From: "qurgh lungqIj" <[email protected]>
> Date: Sun, 22 Apr 2001 01:44:44 -0500
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I've been sitting thinking about this for nearly an hour and I can work
> it out...
>
> How do you translate setances that have "to do" in them?
>
> eg What do you want to do? or I have things to do or I'll do it
>
> I thought about recasting them, but I couldn't work out what to recast
> them too...
>
> qurgh
>

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