tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed May 15 15:37:30 2002
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Re: [KLBC] SISpu'
- From: Captain Krankor <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: [KLBC] SISpu'
- Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 15:37:26 -0400
Note: I have hacked the following to place the intended English
immediately after the Klingon, for discussion purposes.
> RochesterDaq jIyIn.
> I live in Rochester.
Two things here. First off, it's a good idea to put English words or
abbreviations in quotes; it just makes it easier to read. Thus
"Rochester"Daq. Second, while I won't claim what you have done here is
out and out wrong, I think it is, shall we say, suboptimal. yIn really
seems to mean "live" as opposed to "die". To be alive. There is a different
verb, Dab, which means to inhabit, live in a place. I think that would
be the better choice. So I would do this as:
"Rochester" vIDab.
> SISpu' 'ach chalDaq narghchoHpu' Hov'a'na'.
> It was raining, but now the star appears (trying to say: the sun is out)
And you succeeded! I don't think you even needed the -na', people
generally understand Hov'a' as sun. You might have thrown a DaH in
there: SISpu' 'ach DaH chalDaq narghchoHpu' Hov'a'na'. Very well done!
> jIHaD RITDaq.
> I study at RIT.
This is a good example of where the quotes really help; I had to read
RITDaq twice to figure it out. Especially when you have to assume that
not everybody knows what RIT is off the top of their head.
More importantly, watch your sentence structure. Locatives-- the thingies
that tell where the action is happening, such as "RIT"Daq-- always go at
the *head* of the sentence. Thus, it must be:
"RIT"Daq jIHaD.
Also, since you are presumably studying there over a period of time, you
might consider the -taH suffix: "RIT"Daq jIHaDtaH.
> thIngan Hol jatlhpu'law' tera'nganpu' HaDpu''a'.
> Terrans who spoke klingon studied here?
Well, you're on the right track. Rather than explain every point,
why don't I just show you the right answer, and then *please* ask
questions about any part of it that you don't understand why I did
what I did. Also, you definitely seem to want this to be a question,
but the -'a' is really going to make it mean "did they study here?";
I hope that's what you meant.
naDev HaDpu''a' tlhIngan Hol lujatlhlaw'pu'bogh tera'nganpu'?
"Did terrans who spoke Klingon study here?"
Note that the entire phrase <<tlhIngan Hol lujatlhlaw'pu'bogh tera'nganpu'>>
means "terrans who spoke Klingon" and that whole thing is the subject of
the main verb, HaD. And, of course, the subject always goes *after* the
verb.
> (I'm not sure what I should do when I have a suffix that ends in a ',
> and a suffix that begins in a '. I tried. What is the correct way?)
Exactly as you did it. There is nothing wrong with having two ' in a row.
' is just a consonant in Klingon, no different than p or gh. Would you
hesitate to write jISuvruppu' or yaj'eghghach?
It is interesting, though, that this is the one area that breaks the
fundamentally phonetic nature of the writing system; I don't know anyone
who, in actual practice, pronounces doubled consonants differently from
single ones. Indeed, we have the conanical example of toDuj and toDDuj
being pronounced identicaly.
> leSpoH jIjaHrup. jIjaH vagh les.
You apparently did not provide intended English for this one. I
think I'll let you tell me what you were going for before I comment.
> -Ryan Wilcox
--Krankor, Beginners' Grammarian