tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Dec 31 16:42:17 2005
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Re: Klingon at the Thanksgiving table - A month late...
- From: "QeS 'utlh" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Klingon at the Thanksgiving table - A month late...
- Date: Sun, 01 Jan 2006 10:42:04 +1000
- Bcc:
jIghItlhpu', jIja':
>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.
jangpu' voan, ja':
>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.
It's just a matter of style, and others may disagree with me, so don't be
too worried about it.
jIjangtaH, jIja':
>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".
ja'taH voan:
>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.
The native English bias towards nouns is one that beginners usually have a
bit of trouble with, and it's a very strong one. (An excellent example is
the sentence I just wrote, in which there are two main verbs, and both of
them are forms of "to be".) It's something that will go in time, with plenty
of practice.
>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?
jIyajbe'. HIchuH.
jIjangtaH:
...
>{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.)
ja'taH voan:
>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.
Klingon concepts for honour are particularly diverse, naturally. {batlh} is
the generic, overall concept of honour, and {quv} is one's personal honour,
or "face", I suppose. I see the distinction as comparable to that between
the pairs {veS} "warfare" and {noH} "(a) war", and {vaj} "warrior,
warriorhood" and {SuvwI'} "a warrior".
For the full explanation, get HolQeD 12.3, in which Okrand wrote an article
about the various words and concepts associated with honour.
jIja'taH:
>All up: {SuSaHmo' tuquvmoHneS} "Because you are present, you honoured ones
>honour me."
jangtaH voan, ja':
>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.
TKD also says: "It (the suffix) is never required." No, you don't have to
use it, but for an occasion like Thanksgiving with your parents, your
grandparents, aunts and uncles, and so forth, deference is not a bad thing.
In addition, the sentence {tuquvmoH} means "you all honour me"; the person
you're talking about getting honoured is you, not them. The honorific suffix
would show that you honour them in return, and while Australians don't
celebrate Thanksgiving, I would imagine that would be the perfect sentiment
for that occasion.
In short: Unnecessary, but nice.
jIja'taH:
>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,
*suffix
ja'taH voan:
>Ah! Didn't even know tlhIH existed. Thanks! Yep, that all look pretty good.
{tlhIH} isn't a pronoun that gets brought out very often. Since
conversations in Klingon are usually one-on-one (Klingon is not a language
that's often spoken in large gatherings), there's not usually a need.
taH:
>Thank you, Rohan. You have been an awesome Beginners' Grammarian this year.
>I can't wait to see what you do next.
choquvmoH, 'ej pop 'oH Qu''e'.
(You honour me, and it has been an honour to serve.)
Savan,
QeS 'utlh
tlhIngan Hol yejHaD pabpo' / Grammarian of the Klingon Language Institute
not nItoj Hemey ngo' juppu' ngo' je
(Old roads and old friends will never deceive you)
- Ubykh Hol vIttlhegh
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