tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Jan 22 09:19:56 2006

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Re: loy

Shane MiQogh ([email protected]) 

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French you don't sqy "Mon nom est" or "Mon nom c'est" you say "Je m'appelle". For "I call myself" rather than "my name is". Not 100% sure, but "my name is" might be incorrect.

QeS 'utlh <[email protected]> wrote:  ghItlhpu' Shane MiQogh, ja':
>Well, if you can get away with that, lemme point out that if klingons were 
>real,
>that beat around the bush method would get others looking at the one 
>thinking
>"you fool!" lol which they aren't...

I didn't say you could "get away with that". The distinction is that in 
English, "I guess everyone has seen him" either may, or may not, be what is 
called a "speech act" (that is, a linguistic device whereby merely saying 
the words is sufficient to perform the action, as in "I now pronounce you 
husband and wife"), whereas in Klingon {leghpu' Hoch 'e' vIloy} is *not* a 
speech act. A good definition of "speech act" can be found at Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_act

It's the same reason that {qatlho'}, while it has come to mean "thank you" 
in Terran usage, actually does no more than describe the action of thanking: 
"I thank you" or, more accurately, "I am in the action of thanking you" - 
whether it be by the words "thank you", by giving a thank-you gift, or 
whatever. {qatlho'}, strictly speaking, should not be used for "thank you" 
or "thanks" - in other words, as a speech act - based on what Okrand has 
told us about it, but has become so due to an inability for humans to get 
away from the Terran manners that dictate one say "thank you".

To say the version of "I guess that everyone has seen him" that *is* a 
speech act would require {leghlaw'pu' Hoch} - which is no longer a speech 
act anyway, since the verb {loy} is omitted.

>May it be noted that perhaps it's not that dramatic, but one must
>keep the culture in mind when speaking klingon, even if the culture is of a
>fictional background. like "nuqneH"... I don't know how tha'ts gramatically
>correct.. i dobut it is...

{nuqneH} is a contraction of {nuq DaneH} "what do you want?". And as for 
culture, I'm sure that even Klingons guess sometimes. They're not 
omniscient. {{:)

>Heck, "my name is" is incorrect (i think, not 100% sure) in some
>languages...

Which languages, as a matter of interest?

>That would be an intresting thing to ask okrand, i don't knwo for
>sure if "my name is" translated to klingon would be gramatically correct 
>while
>"i call myself" would most likely be a rather smarter choice.

{QeS 'oH pongwIj'e'} "my name is QeS"

This is the only 100% correct way of saying one's name that we know of. "I 
call myself" requires two objects and a subject, which in Klingon is not 
normally possible, as a verb only licenses one subject and one object 
argument at a time. There may be another grammatical way, using {pong} as a 
verb, but we don't know it. (Perhaps {jIpong'eghmeH <> vIlo'} "in order 
that I name myself, I use ", following the pattern of {verengan 
vIHoHmeH taj vIlo'} "in order to kill the Ferengi, I use the dagger"?)

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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