tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Nov 02 23:00:38 2001
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Re: onomatopeia
From: "Rohan Fenwick" <[email protected]>
> jatlh SuStel:
>
> >Notice also that Klingon uses "direct quotations" only. You can't
exactly
> >translate "The prisoner told the guard that he is hungry." In Klingon,
you
> >say "The prisoner told the guard, 'I am hungry.'"
>
> Would it be possible to say something like
>
> ghung qama' 'e' 'avwI' jatlh qama'
> The prisoner told the guard that the prisoner is hungry.
No. For one thing, /'e'/ can only be an object. But you've got /'avwI'/ in
the object position. Furthermore, the person addressed is never the object
of /jatlh/. And it's a simple fact that quotations are always directly
stated in Klingon.
The closest you could get would be
ghung qama'. 'avwI' ja' qama'.
The prisoner is hungry. The prisoner tells the guard.
> or maybe
>
> ghung ghaH 'e' 'avwI' jatlh qama''e'
> It's the prisoner who told the guard that he is hungry
Setting aside the problems mentioned above, why would you say /ghaH/ first,
before it's been identified? If I really wanted to use /ghaH/, using my
alternate (non-direct quotation), I'd say
ghung qama'. 'avwI' ja' ghaH.
> or are these indicating that it is a different prisoner who is hungry, or
> some degree of ambiguity? When translating, I have been using this
structure
> for indirect quotations. Is this incorrect?
You don't do indirect quotations in Klingon. Always make them word-for-word
quotations.
'avwI'vaD jatlh qama' jIghung.
SuStel
Stardate 1840.4