tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Jul 31 11:37:04 2001
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re: Questions
- From: Will Martin <[email protected]>
- Subject: re: Questions
- Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2001 11:35:42 -0400
Some of this is going to come across as being negative or critical. Please
understand that it is very difficult to answer your questions without
challenging some of the presumptions you make in the way you are asking
them. You will come to understand the Klingon language better when you
release yourself from your presumptions. My comments aim toward offering
you that release. Please don't take them personally. In the past, some have
done so.
> From: "Tod The Wonder-Newt" <[email protected]>
> Subject: Questions
> Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2001 21:47:48 -0600
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> yu'mey vIghaj.
{yu'} is a verb, not a noun. You can't just use a verb as a noun because
the definition looks like the noun you want. This is a language, not a
code. Watch the part of speech as much as you watch the definition. To make
the statement you were trying to make, you might do better with something
like:
Sayu'nIS.
If you want to show a good attitude, you might even try:
Sayu'neS.
> First, how would one translate declarative sentences like "We, the
> people, in order...", or "I, Nephi, having been born..."?
To begin with, those are not declarative sentences. Those are sentence
fragments. Again, this is not a code. It is a language. Sometimes you need
to just stop, take a deep breath and try to rethink the way you are going
to express something when you translate.
> The subjects
> are in the initial position as a sort of introduction and anouncement.
The subjects are in the initial position because in English, subjects are
almost ALWAYS in the initial position. That's the way that you are used to
thinking of subjects. It has become part of the culture because it is part
of the grammar. You have to let go of that before you learn to translate
well.
> Putting them at the end would be untrue to the original work, and since
> the full sentences in both these examples happen to be very long and
> convoluted, it would also be confusing.
I think you are likely to get in real trouble with statements like "would
be untrue to the original work". You make an enormous leap of presumption
in saying that.
> In the first quote, the
> placement serves as emphasis;
I strongly suspect that you are presuming a bit here. Technically, "We, the
people" uses a grammatical construction that has been discussed here quite
a bit in the past. The name of it eludes me at the moment because it is
almost lunch time and I'm hungry. It is a simple repetition; two nouns
referring to the same entity. The point here is that the people are the
ones talking. The people stated alone would simply be third person plural,
but we are establishing that the people are first person plural.
> the second quote is from a work originally
> written in Egyptian without punctuation, so the anouncement serves
> stylistically to introduce a new section and topic. Would the solution
> be something like "loDpu' maH", "We are the people";
I think there are some women who might object to that. You introduced
sexual gender where none had been previously implied, apparently without
reason. This is ironic, considering that Klingon doesn't use a person's sex
as grammatical gender, but instead divides between beings capable of using
language, body parts and everything else. You could use {nuvpu'} or any of
several other nouns instead of {loDpu'} if that's what you are going for.
Remember that in Klingon, there is an even simpler device for doing that:
majatlh nuvpu'. "We, the people, speak."
The prefix tells you the subject is first person plural. The explicit noun
{nuvpu'} tells you what "we" are: people.
> "nevI jIH", "I am
> Nephi" period, new sentence?
Likely, yes, but I don't know the rest of the reference you are making, so
I don't know if there is a more effective way to do what you want. It
really is better to deal in complete sentences instead of phrases. Working
with phrases puts too much emphasis on keeping grammar parallel between the
original and the translation and the most powerful tool in good translation
is to recast a sentence with different grammar entirely. That's not always
necessary, but when you intentionally pick out problem examples, as you
seem attracted to doing, you really need to open your mind to a wider
toolset of grammar than simply trying to parallel the original phrase.
In general, as a beginner I recommend that you don't translate sentence
fragments at all. Translate whole sentences. If you find yourself too
frustrated too often, then work on simpler sentences for a while. Don't
start out trying to do the hardest thing you can think of. That is not how
to learn a language. If you think that makes it more interesting, that's
just because you are too lazy to take the time to learn to say simple
things before you get to more complex things.
A LOT of people are too lazy to take the time to learn to say simple things
dependably. Sometimes, I think that is the norm around here. That's why you
see so many posts in English and so few in Klingon. Most beginners just
want to be cool talking about the language, but they never want to get down
and dirty and actually try to say anything using it. A phrase here and
there is enough for them. They just want to name their car and their pet.
They don't want to actually ever learn to SPEAK Klingon.
> This is the best thing that I could think
> of. Another option would be some use of 'e', but that is above my
> level. I realize that I have only just begun the postal course, which
> is excellent, and am not qualified to begin any kind of translation, but
> the idea has really been bothering me.
Here's the crux of the problem. Stop being bothered by little details when
you haven't done the basic work yet to do simple translation. Complexity
builds from simplicity. If you start out wrestling with complex ideas and
you've never bothered to work with the basics, you are not sincere in your
effort to learn the language, and nothing we can do will make up for that.
> Any thoughts? Next, can 'tammoH'
> be a noun,
No.
> as in 'tammoH'a'', a "Crouching Tiger"-zen sort of name?
There are no rules for names, though you can certainly come up with a name
that makes people groan and roll their eyes. It sounds like you are making
headway in that direction. Keep up the good work.
Otherwise, you might want to check the FAQ for names. The URL of the FAQ is
in the header of each message (though that is hidden by some mailers) and
every month or so Holtej mails out a reminder. I'm pretty sure there's a
link to it at the http://www.kli.org website.
> And
> can 'bang' be a verb, as in 'qabang'?
No. It can't. Can you use the English noun "honor" as an adverb without any
suffixes? You can in Klingon. Why not in English? Parts of speech are not
interchangeable in Klingon unless the definition explicitly tells you so.
> tIjang!
> tammoH
charghwI' 'utlh