tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Sep 11 17:05:32 2003
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Re: KLBC: thlIngan Hol Google
Am 18.08.2003 05:58:55, schrieb "Spencer Daniel" <[email protected]>:
>Okay, so you know how you can set Google to be in Klingon? Well, they use
>the -wI' suffix a lot, but I was wondering if it should really be -ghach.
>it seems like they want a nominalizer for things like "a search" (so it
>would be nejghach and not nejwI').
jatlh taD:
>Since this was marked KLBC, I'll let the Beginner's Grammarian comment on
>the grammaticality of {nejghach} if he wants.
Thanks. I almost missed this one mail, but now I want to comment:
The difference is that with the suffix {-wI'}, a verb becomes a noun meaning "someone who does
...". -- the english counterpart is "-er" as in "worker" -- but it's not a suffix to produce nouns.
Such is {-ghach}. It makes a verb with a suffix to a noun, {quvHa'} "be dishonored",
{quvHa'ghach} "dishonor" literally "be-dis-honored-ness". And it works only with verbs which
already have a suffix, it cannot be stuck to the bare verbstem.
And now to answer your question:
You're right, there is a difference between "a search" and {nejwI'} "a searcher". But how can you
know if the website is a literal translation? There are many possibilities when translating.
Quvar.