tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Oct 03 10:37:13 2001
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Re: reH taH leng 'ej taHtaH
Jiri wrote:
>
> reH taH leng 'ej taHtaH (The road goes ever on and on)
Poetic (scansion) reasons aside, this seems like overkill. How about just {reH
taHtaH leng'e'}, which also marks {leng} as the subject of the poem.
>
> lojmItvetlhvo' taghpa' (Down from the door where it began)
> DaH HopchoHpu' lengvam (Now far ahead the road has gone)
> 'ej vIghoSlaHchugh vIghoSnIS (And I must follow it, if I can)
{leng vIghoS}? See {He ghoS} below.
>
> qam Doy'mo' vIthla'taH (Pursuing it with weary[1] feet)
> He tIn muvbe'taHvIS (Until it meets some larger way)
> pa'Daq qIH leng puS Qu' puS je (Where many paths and errands meet)
> ghIq nuqDaq juH? jIjanglaHbe' (And whither then? I cannot say)
Instead of using {leng} "trip, voyage, trek" for a road, many people on the
list have used {He} "course, route" even though neither are really adequate for
a physical road, for which we lack a word. IIRC Okrand once told SuStel(?) at
a qep'a' that {He} cannot be used in any metaphorical sense such as "The
Klingon Way" or "Way of the Warrior", but I don't know whether he ruled out the
mundane, physical sense as well. But if you reset the poem in space, you avoid
that problem - you'll have to do something about those "weary feet" however!
Using {He} also allows you to play with some known Klingon phrases: {He Qob}
"dangerous route", {He ghoS} "follow a course", {He choH} "alter course", {He
nab} "plot (a) course", {He qIm} "track (someone's) course".
OTOH using {leng} does allow you to shift between the noun {leng} and the verb
{leng}.
> [1] is there a word for 'eager'? Or would I have to use the suffix -qang?
Not that I know of. In the right context, {-rup} "ready, prepared" would also
work.
--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons