tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Feb 10 07:58:27 2001

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RE: (KLBC) Re: Simpsons


> TPO wrote:
> > he pulls out a book (which had a maroon colored cover)...
> 
> 
QIS replied:

> nuq paq?  cha' TKD pakmey vighaj.
> 
{nuq paq} doesn't exactly work for this idea. {nuq} is the question "what?",
and the answer takes the place of {nuq}. So {nuq paq} would basically mean
"The book of what?"
The idea that you are trying to say is probably "Which book?" In Klingon,
this type of question is often written as a command.
For example,
"Which helmet do you prefer?" could be said as:
{mIv DamaSbogh yIwIv} - literally, "Choose the helmet which you prefer".
{mIv DamaSbogh} is "The helmet which you prefer".
So, to say "Which book?", you might want to say "Identify this book!" or
"Identify the book which you consider!"

Also, watch your spelling on the second sentence. The word for "books" is
spelled {paqmey}, and you want an uppercase {I} in {vIghaj}.


> "blue" qab ghaj paq wa'DIch.  chIS
> paq cha'DIch.
> 
These sentences are good, grammatically.

You don't need to resort to using the English word "blue" here - you can use
the Klingon word {SuD}. {SuD} means "be blue/green/yellow". Klingons group
these three colors together in one word.
In English, "blue" can refer to "navy blue", "turquoise", "cyan", etc. If
you wanted to distinguish between two of these blue colors in English, you
could use a phrase like "the light blue book" or "the navy blue book".
Since you are describing a white book and a blue book, {chIS} and {SuD} are
good enough to distinguish them. If you wanted to compare a blue book and a
yellow book, you could say that the yellow book is {SuD 'ej wov}
("green/yellow/blue and light"), and the blue book is {SuD 'ej Hurgh}
("green/yellow/blue and dark").

When you use a verb to modify the noun, the verb follows the noun:
{qab SuD} "A blue face"
{qab SuD ghaj paq wa'DIch} "The first book has a blue face."
If the verb comes first, it makes a whole sentence:
{SuD qab} "A face is blue"

As far as your question goes, the Klingon dictionary with the maroon cover
isn't real. The animators for that episode of the Simpsons probably didn't
have a copy of the real Klingon dictionary to look at, and just decided
randomly on a color to make their picture.

Qapla'!

- taD

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