tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Jun 02 19:22:14 2005

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Re: More on Ray Charles

QeS lagh ([email protected]) 

ja' charghwI':
>Meanwhile, I don't dream because of you. Before I met you, I dreampt and I 
>was going to continue to dream anyway, even if we had never met. You don't 
>cause me to dream of you.

>But since we've met, you fascinate me, and because of this fascination, I 
>always dream ABOUT you.
>What does it mean to dream about someone? How can you say that in Klingon?
>Hoch ram najtaHvIS wa' nuv neH, reH DuqeltaH lut. najwI'vam Dangu'laHbe'.
>This makes clear that there is only one person for which the story in the 
>dream always considers you. Klingon often uses multiple sentences to 
>express what we say in a single sentence in English. In this case, the two 
>sentences are clearly linked with the words {naj} and {najwI'}.

Good point. The idea of multiple sentences to express one English sentence 
is often tough for beginners to grasp (I still have trouble with it fairly 
frequently).

Nevertheless, it would appear that juDmoS is trying to restrain the length 
of the translations so they fit more or less with the meter. As I wrote in 
my previous post, we recently received a slang usage for {Soj} in HolQeD 
12n3; that is, "affair, matter, concern, topic". If I understand it right, 
we may be able to use {jInaj 'ej Soj SoH} and variations on that theme:

{jInaj 'ej najtaHghachwIj Soj SoH 'e' DaSovbe'}
"I dream, and you don't know that you are the subject of my (continuing) 
dreaming."

{ram jInajtaHvIS najtaHghachwIj Soj SoH. 'e' DaSovbe'}
"At night while I dream, you are the subject of my dreaming. You don't know 
that."

I must admit, if you'll excuse the pun, I hadn't considered {qel} at all: 
{ram jInajtaHvIS Duqel najtaHghachwIj 'e' DaSovbe'} "you don't know that 
while I dream at night, my dreaming considers you" may be possible if an act 
of dreaming can {qel} something, which I'm still trying to work out.

Of course, all this is dependent upon using "I, me, my" - basically 
translating as "You don't know that I dream of you at night" rather than 
"You don't know the person who dreams of you at night".

Savan,

QeS lagh
taghwI' pabpo' / Beginners' Grammarian


not nItoj Hemey ngo' juppu' ngo' je
(Old roads and old friends will never deceive you)
     - Ubykh Hol vIttlhegh

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