tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jan 23 12:06:19 2006
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Re: Neologisms (was Re: I have a few questions that confuse me.
>VoraghL
> > In Russian, too, there's no "to be" verb in the present tense. In the
> > written language a dash is often added for clarity:
> >
> > *Ya -- klingonets.*
> > I am a Klingon.
> > tlhIngan jIH.
lay'tel SIvten:
>Yes, there is a Russian word for "be" in the present tense (est'), but it's
>left out a lot of the time, especially in this kind of equational sentence.
Exactly. It's a frozen form of the old *sut'* and not conjugated in the
present. When it is used, it adds an emphatic sense":
On i est' klingonets!
He is so a Klingon! He really is a Klingon. (I kid you not)
Among other uses *est'* stresses existence and is often translated "there
is/are":
I est' klingontsy!
Klingons *do* exist! There are *so* Klingons!
Den'gi est'?
Is there any money? Got any cash? Anyone have money?
Est'.
There is.
Da, u menya est' (den'gi)
Yes, I have some (money) (i.e. on me at the moment)
Zhizn est' zhizn.
"Life is life" (expression meaning "whatchagonnado?")
>Other Russian words for "be" (e.g. yavlyat'sya) are used a lot in the present
>tense.
True, but it doesn't mean "to be" strictly speaking. *Yavlyat'sya* is the
reflexive form of *yavlyat'* "to show, reveal". *Yavlyat'sya* "to appear"
plus the instrumental case is often translated with a form of "to be", most
often in an elevated or official style:
yavlyat'sya polnoi neozhidannost'iu
to be a complete surprise
Pervyi Gorod yavlyaetsya stolitsei Klingonskoi imperii
The First City is the capital of the Klingon Empire.
Colloquially, this latter would more likely be phrased with *eto* "this
(neuter)":
Pervyi Gorod -- eto stolitsa klingonskoi imperii
The First City's the capital of the Klingon Empire.
which is another work around for the lack of a conjugated "to be" in the
present tense.
Yet another word - *Byt'* "to be" - is fully productive only in the future
(*budet*, *budut*, etc.) and past (*byl*, *byla*, etc.) but not in the
present, except as an infinitive:
Byt' ili ne byt', eto -- vopros.
To be or not to be, that is the question.
IOW the conjugated forms of *byt'* and *est* in the present tense have
dropped out of the modern language for some reason, but Russians manage
quite well without them.
>Hebrew, OTOH, does not use "be" in the present tense, preferring instead to
>use pronouns, very much like Klingon.
But usually only in the third person:
ani ha-moreh
I'm the teacher
atah ha-talmid
you (m.) are the student
vs.
lay'tel hu ha-moreh
lay'tel is the teacher (lay'tel, he's the teacher)
BTW, Russian colloquial also uses pronouns in exactly the same way in the
present:
lay'tel -- on prepodavatel'
lay'tel's the teacher
or, dare I say it:
ghojmoHwI' ghaH lay'tel'e'
"as for lay'tel, he's the teacher"
(You know, I just knew I shouldn't have brought this up as soon as I hit
the "send" key! <g>
Now, back to Klingon...)
--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons