tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Feb 04 12:34:48 2003
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Re: nuq vIjatlhjaj
DImatlh wrote:
>*I love you*, nuq jatlhlu'.
chay' <<I love you>> jatlhlu'?
{chay'} "how" tends to be used in these types of questions. E.g.:
chay' jura'
What are your orders?
("How do you command us?") TKD/ST3
chay' Dochvam vIlo'
What do I do with this?
("How do I use this?") TKD
chay' nguv
How is (it) tinted? KGT
[i.e. What color is it?]
>*qabang*, majbe''a' 'oH?
QaQbe''a' <<qabang>>? [Use the verb {QaQ} "be good"; {maj} is an exclamation.]
As for you question, {bang} "love" is a noun, meaning "beloved one". It's
the person you love, not the emotion. For that, Klingons have the word
{parmaq}, "conventionally translated 'love' or 'romance' (though the
Klingon concept is far more aggressive than the Federation Standard
translations imply)" as Okrand explains in KGT (p.199); perhaps "lust" is
closer to the mark.
Unfortunately there is no known verb "love" and you cannot use the verb
prefixes on a noun, so you'll have to use a work around. Here are three:
1. Use the noun {bang}. E.g.:
bangwI' SoH.
You are my love (beloved one).
You surely wouldn't say this to someone you didn't love, would
you? (Whether you're sincere is, of course, another matter entirely.
<g>) Klingons use {bang} to form noun-noun phrases: {bang bom} "love
song" (lit. "beloved's song") and {bang pong} "pet name, endearment,
hypocorism".
2. Use a known verb close in meaning to "love". E.g. {parHa'} "like" plus
the emphatic suffix {-qu'}:
qaparHa'qu'
I really like you. I like you a lot. I like you very much.
qabelmoH'a'?
Do I please you? PK
(lit. "Do you like me?")
SoHmo' jInong.
Because of you, I am passionate.
3. Create a near match from an known verb. The most common way to say "I
love you" on this List is, in fact, to use {muS} "hate, detest" plus the
suffix {-Ha'} ("undo, do wrongly, to un-") to it to form a kind of
opposite. E.g.:
qamuSHa'
I love you. ("I un-hate you")
Many, but not all, Klingon verbs form their opposite in this way. Note
that {muSHa'} may not mean exactly what the English verb "love" - or the
Russian verb *lyubit'* - does, but it's probably as close as we can get
given our current knowledge of the language.
These are only suggestions. AFAIK we don't know how a Klingon would tell
her/his {bang} "I love you" - assuming s/he would even feel the need to do
so. Unfortunately for Federations linguists, Klingon romance is considered
extremely private and not something to be shared with strangers, let alone
nosy aliens.
--
Voragh "Damage control is easy. Reading Klingon
- that's
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons hard!" (Montgomery
Scott, STIV)