tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Dec 31 11:41:56 2005

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Re: Klingon at the Thanksgiving table - A month late...

voan ([email protected]) 

This happens alot to me. I'll ask a question/post something somehwere, and after I see the
response, I'll learn from it, but never reply. >.< Should probably stop doing that. 

On to the Klingon, then! :-)

ghItlhpu' QeS 'utlh, ja':

> >I thank you all for being here today.
> >naDev DaHjaj SaHmoH Satlho'.
> 
> You've confused the type 4 causative {-moH} with the type 9 {-mo'} "because 
> of", and the prefix on that verb should be 2nd person plural with no object: 
> so {SuSaHmo'}. Other than that, it's fine. I personally would put {naDev} 
> adjacent to {SuSaHmo'} to reinforce that connection, but I can't find any 
> canon that contradicts the order of adverbial nouns you've used.

OK. Makes sense. Now that you mention it, it does seem a tad bit better to put the naDev with
SuSaHmo'. I can see how that works.

> >And you honor me with your presense.
> >'ej SuSaHghaH HutlhHu' tubatlhneS.
> 
> Mmm... a lot to be fixed here.
> 
> Let's start with the first verb, {SuSaHghaH}, which I assume means "your 
> presence". To start off with, I suspect you intended to use the suffix 
> {-ghach} and make the noun "your being present". However, we've never had 
> any canon in which a verb plus {-ghach} takes pronominal prefixes; for "your 
> being present", you'd need the possessive instead: {SaHghachraj}. However, 
> we have a slight complication in that {-ghach} almost never appears without 
> another suffix, and when it does, it's highly marked: {SaHghachraj} would be 
> like saying in English "your presentness" or the like. To make this work 
> with a verb plus {-ghach}, I'd have to either say {SaHtaHghach} "presence" 
> (or, since the people are there for the purpose of celebrating Thanksgiving, 
> maybe {SaHlI'ghach} "presence which has a goal or ultimate stopping point"?) 
> or, using a different verb, {ghoSpu'ghach} "having come", neither of which 
> I'm particularly happy with. The shortest answer would be to drop your 
> English-speaking bias towards nouns, be Klingon, and use a verb instead. :) 
> To be short, simple, and accurate, just say {SuSaHmo'} "because you are 
> present".

haha You've got me pegged, QeS 'utlh. I do have a thing for nouns. *blushblush* And it would help
if I could type my Klingon with accuracy instead of making you guess every couple words. 

That being said, interesting point about dropping said nouns/noun helpers (see below), and going
with verbs. Makes total sense. I just have trouble, well, not only remembering that, but parsing
it so it would work. My "knowledge" of the vocabulary is surprisingly small, so while I have
access to "all" of the words, I don't know from memory which words are avaliable. Do you (or
anyone else) have any suggestions as to how I might go about learning how to parse/construct the
English equivilent of a Klingon sentence?

> Next, {HutlhHu'}. I'm not really sure what you tried to do with this, unless 
> you intended something with {HutlhHa'} "un-lacking" for "with"? Klingon 
> doesn't have any word that directly corresponds to "with", and if you use 
> {SuSaHmo'} you don't need one: "with your presence" becomes "because you are 
> present".

(see above. :-P)

> Finally, {tubatlhneS}. Nice to see both the correct usage of the pronominal 
> prefix {tu-}, which is particularly rare, and the use of the suffix {-neS} 
> which is probably the second most ignored suffix in Klingon, right behind 
> {-beH}. Nevertheless, {batlh} is not a verb, but a noun. For the verb, you 
> need to use {quv} "to be honoured" plus the causative {-moH}: {tuquvmoHneS} 
> "you honour me" (literally, "you cause me to be honoured"). ({quvmoH} "to 
> honour" is in the TKD addendum.)

Works for me. I had thought that batlh had all those meanings, I guess not. Good to know about
quv. I'll have to remember that next time.

> All up: {SuSaHmo' tuquvmoHneS} "Because you are present, you honoured ones 
> honour me."

Looks good to me. Do you think the neS is needed? Or does it even need to be translated? For
example, couldn't you say "Because you are present, (connantations of lots and lots of honor) you
honor me"? TKD says "It is used to express extreme politness or deference." So... I don't know. It
just looks redundent here.

> >I love you all.
> >bandwI' SoHmey.
> 
> The plural second person pronoun is {tlhIH}, and I think you intended 
> {bangwI'} "my love(s)". Recall that nouns in Klingon, unless overtly marked 
> for plural, are inherently unmarked for either singular or plural: they 
> could be one or the other, and here {tlhIH} does a perfectly fine job of 
> disambiguating. So {bangwI' tlhIH}. You could add a plural prefix, but it 
> would have to be {-pu'} (for beings capable of using language) and not 
> {-mey} (see TKD section 3.3.2), and it would have to be added to the noun 
> {bang} rather than the pronoun: {bangpu'wI' tlhIH} "you are my loves".

Ah! Didn't even know tlhIH existed. Thanks! Yep, that all look pretty good.

> >So how heavily have I dishonored myself in front of the family?
> 
> If they don't speak Klingon, not at all. But if you don't do it right next 
> time... {{:)

Then I'll be sure to check with you or te'reS next time. Just in case. :-P

> Savan,
> 
> QeS la'
> taghwI' pabpo' / Beginners' Grammarian

Thank you, Rohan. You have been an awesome Beginners' Grammarian this year. I can't wait to see
what you do next.

voan (previously no'aH)

p.s. I've decided on a "Klingon" name. voan. Why? Well, I took an Biblical/New Testament Greek
class at the university this past semester, and my name in said Greek would be nu omicron alpha
eta, which is v(n) o(o) a(a) n(e/breathless h). It works in Klingon as well, even though it's
pronounced differently, so I thought, eh, why not? :-)


		
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