tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Aug 26 15:09:12 2003
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Re: Dumb Question -- Emphasis
...Paul wrote:
>Okay, two dumb questions... How do I say "Dumb Question", and then my
>main question, how would I emphasize, I guess, pronouns?
Good question since there's no known noun for "question". We have is the
verb {ghel} "ask (a question)" and {tlhob} "ask, request, plead" - though
the latter seems to be used for asking favors. The closest I could come up
with is either to use {-Ha'} "do wrongly" - {jIghelHa'} "I mis-ask" - which
isn't exactly the same thing, or use the verb {Dogh} "be foolish, be silly"
and use two clauses: {chaq jIDogh 'ach jIghelnIS} "Maybe I'm foolish (will
be foolish), but I need to ask".
>Case in point, here at work, someone said, "Thanks" and I turned around
>and said, "No, thank *YOU*". How would I convey that in Klingon?
>Admittedly this is a little silly, it's a question of verbal emphasis.
>But I think there can be some syntactical sugar there...
>
> qatlho' "I thank you"
> SoH qatlho' "I thank *you*" ?
> SoH'e' qatlho' "I thank YOU!" ?
>
>Is that last one even legit?
It's possible. Okrand has used {-'e'} on a pronoun twice AFAIK:
lujpu' jIH'e'
I, and only I, have failed. TKD
[sic, for {jIlujpu'} (unless it's clipped)]
'ach HoD, Hevetlh wIghoSchugh veH tIn wI'el maH'e'!
But Captain, that course will take us into the [Great] Barrier as well. ST5
> jatlh tlhIngan wa', "qatlho'"
> jatlh tlhIngan cha', "ghobe', SoH'e' qatlho'!"
I think here you can safely drop {-'e'} unless there's another line:
jatlh tlhIngan wa', <<qatlho'.>>
jatlh tlhIngan cha', <<ghobe', SoH qatlho'!>>
jatlh tlhIngan wa', <<ghobe'! SoH'e' qatlho'!!>>
Each one is emphasized one more degree than the last. Beyond that, you'll
have to rely on intonation or textual emphasis.
>On a semi-related note, how would one produce emphasis in text? In
>English, we tend to do things like capitalize WHAT we want to emphasize,
>or maybe we put *asterisks* around it... The former isn't a good idea
>for tlhIngan Hol, since capitalization is somewhat important. The latter
>is possible, I suppose, but I think an asterisk normally indicates
>"wrong" or "questionable" bits, which isn't what we want.
You're right to avoid capitalization. Generally when writing tlhIngan Hol
on the List we use asterisks to mark either non-Klingon words (so people
don't waste time trying to analyze or look them up in the Dictionary) or
for emphasis. Using -hyphens- or _underscores_ works too. Also, note that
above I used <<angle brackets>> (or French-style guillemets) to mark
quotations since regular English-style apostrophes and quotation marks can
be hard to distinguish from the consonant /'/.
We also use the asterisk to mark an (possibly) incorrect word in
Klingon: e.g. *{Doghghel}. But that's usually when quoting a Klingon word
in English in combination with {curly brackets} to set it off.
--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons