tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Apr 20 15:23:27 2003
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Re: qatlh vay' vInuQ :)
From: "...Paul" <[email protected]>
> On Sun, 20 Apr 2003, David Trimboli wrote:
> > From: "...Paul" <[email protected]>
> > > My initial reading, I thought you might have been intending something
like
> > > "A challenger's reasons and a dissenter's reasons are different"
> >
> > That would have been /pIm qaDwI' meq QochwI' meq je/.
>
> bIqarbej. 'ach chay' jISovlaH bIjatlhchu'chegh?
>
> Exactly -- but how was I to know if that was what you actually intended?
mu'tlhegh'e' vIjatlhmo' rIntaH jay'!
> > > vItlu'pu' net SovlaHbe' vIt Sovbe'lu'chugh. tera'nganvaD Damughchugh
> > > tlhIngan DajatlhDI' vaj bIlugh 'e' wISovbej. mISvaD bISuD
Damughbe'chugh.
> > >
> > > "One cannot know if one is telling the truth if one does not know the
> > > truth. If you translate for Terrans when you speak in Klingon, then
we
> > > will know for certain that you are correct. You risk confusion if you
do
> > > not translate it."
> >
> > In the above paragraph, use /bImughchugh/ and /bIjatlhDI'/.
>
> qatlh?
>
> Why? :)
>
> Perhaps I omitted /Hol/ after /tlhIngan/ -- But /jatlh/ takes an object
> when the object is a language.
But your English sentence-which you are including to make it clear what you
mean-disagrees with this idea. Your English has "If you translate for
Terrans when you speak in Klingon . . . ." That is, unambiguously,
/tera'nganvaD bImughchugh tlhIngan Hol DajatlhDI' . . ./. I thought you had
said /tlhInganvaD/ (I missed the lack of /-vaD/), and thought that
/bIjatlhDI'/ would be correct. In this case, you need to say /tlhIngan Hol
DajatlhDI'/.
> This is rudimentary TKD example stuff.
> The object of /mugh/ "translate" is what is translated. Perhaps a little
> clearer this way:
I have no problem with that. But your English example, which was supposed
to clarify what you meant, and is the whole point of this discussion,
differed. I corrected your Klingon, which is the language you are learning,
to match the English, which is the language you already know.
> tlhIngan Hol DajatlhDI' tera'nganvaD Damughchugh vaj bIlugh 'e' wISovbej
>
> "When you speak Klingon, if you translate it for Terrans, then we will
> certainly know you are correct."
Here, your Klingon and English match up.
> > /mISvaD bISuD/ means "You risk for the benefit of confusion." That's
> > probably not what you want. An alternative might be along the lines of
> > /chaq qaS mIS/ or /chaq mISlu'/.
>
> They don't really convey the sentiment, though they would be accurate.
> Perhaps more close would be /chaq vay' DamISmoH/ "Perhaps you'll cause
> someone to be confused." More, though, I wanted to convey the idea of
> risk that is your choice, whereas /chaq/ would seem to me to be more of a
> general concept with no human control. Thus /SuD/. The question is, does
> /SuD/ take an object? Is it more "take a chance on"? In which case I
> would've just said /mIS DaSuD/ "You take a chance on confusion"...
Nowhere is there any indication that TKD's definition is wrong or
inadequate, so we can't go and make up such a change ourselves.
Maybe you'll like this better: /bISuD; chaq mISlu'/ "You take a risk;
someone may be confused." Here, context clearly links the uncertainty of
/chaq/ with your risk-taking. We know Klingon can imply linked context like
this: see the section in KGT on similies.
> > mu'tlhegh qon SuSvaj'e'. vIqonbe'qu' jIH'e'.
>
> "SuSvaj records sentences. I definitely do not record them."
>
> This would be a good one for you to translate yourself, because I don't
> think I even get the general gist of your intention here. /qon/ seems to
> be more of an audio/musical concept, IMHO, so I'm not sure that's what you
> want. Then, the two sentences seem contradictory, in one you say you're
> recording things, the next you're emphasising that you do not... Could you
> have meant /vIqonchu'be' jIH'e'/? And who or what is /SuSvaj/ -- I
> thought you were /SuStel/? :P
mu'tlhegh wIqeltaHbogh ghItlh *SuSvaj*! vIghItlhbe' jIH'e' jay'!
SuSvaj is someone else on the list: the person who wrote the original
sentence who started all of this. He is not me. We just have similar
names, and sometimes joke about /SuS tuq/.
/qon/ "record" is also used for "compose" (Klingon songs are considered to
already exist; the composer simply finds out what they are and records
them.) I'm not certain that it can be used outside of song references, and
for that I apologize. But given that we know that /ghItlh/ means the act of
writing, not the thinking up of new material, and /gher/ means to compile
pre-existing data, there's a good chance that /qon/ would apply to
message-writing, too.
You MUST keep context in mind when writing Klingon. /mutlhegh ghItlh
SuSvaj'e'/ does mean "SuSvaj writes sentences," among other things, when
taken out of context, but the context, which has now disappeared through
snippage, was a statement you made saying it was my sentence. It wasn't. I
didn't state the original.
Furthermore, /vIqonbe'qu' jIH'e'/ doesn't mean "I definitely do not record
them." It means "As for me, *I* did *NOT* record it." I did not use
/-bej/, and all that emphasis was used very deliberately.
> > > pIj jImuj 'e' vISov. vaj HochvaD jInub.
> >
> > /nub/ means "be suspect." The word you want is /pIH/ "be suspicious."
> > You're not suspicious for the benefit of all, and /pIH/ "be suspicious"
> > probably doesn't take an object (there's another word /pIH/ "expect"
which
> > does), so I'd go with /vaj Hochmo' jIpIH/ "So I am suspicious because of
> > everything." Another alternative, probably even better, is /vaj
mupIHmoH
> > Hoch/ "So everything makes me suspicious."
>
> Check dictionary.com, I think you'll find that if one is suspect, they
> "have suspicion".
Ah. I was under the impression that "be suspect" meant the subject was the
thing under suspicion. It was always used that way to me during college . .
. .
> And /-vaD/ is an indirect object marker, it does not
> necessarily mean "benefit" in the positive English connotation.
Wrong, both about what /-vaD/ means and about what I meant. "Beneficiary"
in this context doesn't necessarily have a positive connotation. It simply
means you were the one who in some way received the result of the action.
TKD talks about "indirect objects" only to point out that what English uses
as an indirect object is usually handled by /-vaD/. There are other uses of
/-vaD/. For instance, /Qu'vaD lI'/ "It is useful for the mission."
> > > lughbejbe' mu'tlheghwIj 'ej
> > > lughbejbe' mughta'ghachwIj je. laHwIj vIDubmeH Hol'e' Saja'chuqmoH..
> > >
> > > "I know I'm often wrong. So, I'm suspicious of everything. My
sentences
> > > are not certain to be correct and my translations aren't certain to be
> > > correct either. I start discussions of the language itself to improve
> > > my abilities." (Okay, I'm really stretching thin on /Saja'chuqmoH/ --
how
> > > would you say "I discuss the language"?)
> >
> > Actually, you're pretty close. My pet theory has it that the sentence
would
> > be /Hol'e' maja'chuq/ "We discuss language." /Hol'e'/ is simply the
topic
> > of the sentence, and thus goes before the OVS part of the sentence (just
> > like any other non-subject, non-object noun). Note: you can't discuss
with
> > yourself; /-chuq/ needs an object indicating plural subjects. /-moH/
> > doesn't work in there at all.
>
> There is nothing I know of that says putting /-'e'/ on the object of the
> verb makes it chuvmey... /Hol'e'/ is the object of /ja'chuq/ -- what is
> discussed? the language. Language is the object of the discussion. So
> "we discuss the language would be /Hol'e' wIja'chuq/. The only way I
> could see it NOT being that way is if you consider /ja'chuq/ to be simply
> /ja'/ with a suffix -- but it appears together as a specific entry in the
> TKD (p.90), and I *believe* it was officially noted by Okrand that words
> like that should be treated as unique words (/lo'laH/ being the usual
> example...) Tell me if I've misremembered what the ruling was...
You have misremembered. When the dictionary shows verb+suffix, the standard
interpretation is that it's verb+suffix, not a distinct verb. /lo'laH/ was
the most obvious EXCEPTION. I'm not sure if Okrand ever stated outright the
status of /ja'chuq/; I seem to remember that he did, but it wasn't in the
same post as the others.
Next, and dearer to my heart: who ever said that putting /-'e'/ on a noun
made it /chuvmey/? It's a noun, plain and simple. It's not the object of
/ja'chuq/, and it's certainly not the subject. No verb with /-chuq/ on it
has an object. The meaning of the word is that it is the topic of the
discussion. According to TKD p. 60, "Any noun in the sentence indicating
something other than subject or object comes first, before the object noun."
Time references are usually nouns, and they go in front. Why not topics?
It's even got a Type 5 noun suffix on it, which makes it fit even better
with the next sentence in TKD on the subject: "Such nouns usually end in a
Type 5 noun suffix . . . ."
Hol'e' maja'chuq
"We discuss language."
Literally, "As for language, we tell each other."
I do not claim that this sentence is definitely the way Klingons do it,
which is why I called it my pet theory when I presented the sentence, but it
follows every single rule from any canon source, and no example contradicts
it. We even have support: in Star Trek V, Vixis says /qIbDaq SuvwI''e' SoH
Dun law' Hoch Dun puS/ "You would be the greatest warrior in the galaxy."
Literally, it's "In the galaxy, as for warriors, you are the most
wonderful." No, it's not an OVS sentence, but we have plenty of evidence
that non-subject, non-object nouns go in front of law'/puS sentences too.
> > To say "I start discussions of the language," you might say /jIHmo'
Hol'e'
> > maja'chuqchoH/ or /Hol'e' maja'chuqchoH 'e' vIqaSmoH/.
>
> Good suggestions, though I stil think it'd be /wI-/, not /ma-/ :)
I am convinced that /ja'chuq/ is simply /ja'+chuq/, and that Okrand himself
said this somewhere.
SuStel
Stardate 3301.4