tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun May 08 00:37:58 2005

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Re: Request for comments

QeS lagh ([email protected])



ja'pu' juDmoS:

>bIghHa'vam wIche' tlhInganpu'.
>(We Klingons run this prison.)

jIjang:
>Hm. I don't know whether this can strictly be done; although there's no 
>canon against it, there's none for it either, AFAIK.
>I would have done it as two sentences: {tlhIngan maH 'ej bIghHa'vam 
>wIche'}.

ja' juDmoS:
>The idea I was trying to convey is that this is a
>Klingon prison, as opposed to, say, some namby-pamby
>"comfortable" feddie lockup with color tevees and
>sech...

No problem. I just don't know whether it's possible to use {wI-} with an 
explicit subject in that way, that's all I was commenting on. {tlhIngan 
bIghHa'vam wIche'} "we run this Klingon jail", maybe?

taH:
>QumwI' bolo' 'e' boSuqQo'.
>(You won't get a phone call.)

jIjang:
>I wouldn't use {Suq} with {'e'} in this way. {Suq} means "get, acquire", 
>and to me it gives the sense of actually laying hands on something. I 
>suspect you may have tried to translate the English "You won't get to use 
>the phone", in which "get" is more idiomatic.

jangtaH:
>Okay... I misinterpreted the explanation as I read
>it.. kinda thot I might be...so I'll use the gen-neg
>rover -be'. I was attempting to disavow the concept of
>entitlement as presented in the aforementioned "Club
>Fed" prisons.

qay'be'. Also, maybe {ghogh HablI' Dalo' net chaw'Qo'} "you won't be allowed 
to use the phone" is a good bet.

(taHtaH)

ja'taH:
>narghlaH pagh. cha'logh nargh 'e' lunIDlaH pagh.
>(No one can escape. No one can try twice.)

jIjangtaH:
>Not bad! A couple of small things - {pagh} is probably singular (!) rather 
>than plural, and so wouldn't use the prefix {lu-}.

jangtaH:
>I dunno... I look at the use of pagh as "no one"
>similarly to the use of pagh as "nothing"...not
>necessarily singular...

"No-one" and "nothing" can both be translated as {pagh}, that's true. But 
{pagh} is very likely not plural: even in English we say "no-one is here" 
(with "is", agreeing with singular "no-one"), not *"no-one are here" ("are" 
would appear with a plural subject). And as far as I can tell, {pagh} 
doesn't appear in canon with any sort of plural agreement.

jangtaH:
>but I could be wrong, so I bow to your Grammarian-ness.

Please don't. :) If you think you're right, by all means, always say so. I'm 
human, and I do make mistakes.

jIja'taH:
>Also, the translation "no-one can try to escape twice" obscures the fact
>that in {cha'logh nargh 'e' lunIDlaH pagh}, the subject is actually 
>escaping
>twice, not trying twice.

jangtaH:
>Excellent point... never considered that possible
>interpretation.

qay'be'; jIQaHmeH jISaH. {{:)


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

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