tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jan 30 08:49:25 2006
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Re: ja'
Quvar:
> > And what about {ra'}? Do I say
> > <yIloS> ra' HoD
> > or
> > <yIloS> nura' HoD
Philip:
>In addition to what QeS 'utlh said, a sentence that comes to my mind
>is {chay' jura'} "How do you command us?", said (IIRC) of a crew to
>its commanding officer -- rather than {chay' bIra'}.
>
>(I thought this was from the "ritualised speech" portion of KGT, but
>haven't been able to find it there. Voragh?)
"Ritualized speech" is discussed in KGT (pp. 181 ff.) and "ritualistic
speech" in the chapter "The Fiction of Klingon Conformity" (pp. 7-43 passim).
QeS:
> > {ja' <<yIloS>> nura' HoD}
> > "The captain commanded us. He said 'Wait!'"
This would be something like: "He said, "The captain commanded us,
'Wait!'." IOW the string {<<yIloS>> nura' HoD} is what he said {ja'}. You
need to add some punctuation to the Klingon.
FYI here's Will Martin's interview with Mark Okrand on verbs of speech in
HolQeD (Dec 1998):
MO: ... Verbs of speech are "say" verbs, like jatlh and ja'.
WM: In English, we use many of them.
MO: Yes. In English, we say, "Give me some water," he said. "Give me
some water," he pleaded. "Give me some water," he yelled.
WM: He added. He begged. He opined.
MO: Exactly. I think that's an English thing to do. That's not a Klingon
thing to do. In Klingon, you jatlh and you ja'. That's about it. The
guard asked the prisoner a question. He replied. He said, "[gestures a
quotation he never quite made]"
[After the interwiew, I made the following three lines of examples
to show
how this worked:
qama' yu''avwI'. jatlh Qu'lIj DarIn'a'?
'avwI' jang qama'. jatlh tugh. vIrInmeH taj vlpoQ.
mon 'avwI'. jatlh chotojmeH bInIDchu'ta'.
Dr. Okrand modified one sentence and said he accepted them as valid but
wanted it noted that they were my sentences and not his, in his
words, "a
suggestion by you, okayed by me." - WM]
WM: So, basically, in Klingon, you would just use jatlh a lot. If someone
is asking a question, would you state the question and say jatlh?
MO: If it's a direct quotation, I would. Yes.
[....]
MO: The way I see I see the verbs of speech, there may be more than just
ja' and jatlh, but there is only a small number of words, unlike
English. You have to use a separate sentence for the replying,
pleading, screaming. "He screamed. He said,'Come help me.'"
WM: Since a direct quotation grammatically looks like two separate
sentences, you are saying that it would now look like three separate
sentences at that point. You'd have one describing what style of
verbalization he was having, one saying "he said" and one giving
the quotation.
MO: Yes.
WM: Very interesting.
(clip)
WM: Just to mention particular verbs in terms of whether they can be
used for speech or not, you are saying that ghel is a word that
would probably not be used typically as a verb of speech. That even
if you are asking a question you would still tend to use ja' or jatlh.
MO: Yes. "He asked me. He said,'blah, blah, blah.'" Or "He said,'blah,
blah, blah.' He asked me." It doesn't matter.
WM: jang - "answer" would be similar?
MO: Yes.
WM: And tlhob would similarly be...
MO: tlhob also has the non-quoting sense.
WM: Things you would unlikely use for speech are bach, chel ...
MO: bach is slang. The rules might be a little bit different. For non-
slang...
WM: chup "suggest." jach "cry out." SIv "wonder."
MO: I've got to figure out what to do about "wonder." That summer, the
more I thought about it the more confused I got.
WM: Are there any other verbs of speech that you would care to
comment on?
MO: Are there any other verbs of speech?
WM: And a typical direct object of ja' would be the person addressed and
a typical object of the verb jatlh would be the thing you say.
MO: The speech event.
WM: I like that term.
MO: Including a direct quote. I'm telling a story. He "blah, blah, blah"
jatlh.
lay'tel:
>>Maybe better as
>> {nura' HoD. ja' <<yIloS>>.}
>>"The captain commanded us. He said, 'Wait!' "
Examples of {ra'}:
qara'DI'
as soon as I command you. TKD
cha yIbaH qara'DI'
qara'DI' cha yIbaH
Fire the torpedoes at my command. TKD
qara'pa'
before I command you. TKD
chay' jura'
What are your orders? ("How do you command us?") TKD
jIyajHa'. chay' jura'?
[untranslated] ST3
chay' jura'?
[untranslated] ST6
qara'qu'
That's an order. (ST5 notes)
ra' qarghan HoD
[It is] under the command of Captain Kargan. S7
(lit. "Captain Kargan commands [it].")
You could also say {nuja' <<yIloS>>}. Cf.
qaja'pu' HIqaghQo'
HIqaghQo' qaja'pu'
I told you not to interrupt me. TKD
This is literally, "I told you, 'Don't interrupt me!'" or "'Don't
interrupt me!' I told you.'" ... [TKD 67]
In light of the HolQeD interview, you could substitute {jatlh}, which seems
to be the most common way to introduce a quote:
nura' HoD. jatlh <<yIloS>>.
It sounds awkward in English, but apparently not in Klingon.
--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons