tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Nov 11 10:28:49 2007

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Re: vIghro'vetlh

Alan Anderson ([email protected]) [KLI Member] [Hol po'wI']

ja' mIq'ey:

> --- Doq <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Reading TKD, I see that Okrand says Klingon sentences tend to be  
>> small...
>>
>> Even in human languages, unnecessary complexity is rarely a good  
>> thing.
>
> True.  The question is how you decide when you've
> reached that point.  I suppose this can vary from
> language to language (and from speaker to speaker),
> but I don't think the complexity of my Klingon
> sentence would seem excessive in any of the human
> languages I've studied.

There's another factor which isn't obvious.  You asked about the  
"style" of what you wrote.  Many of the people in a position to  
answer know Klingon as a spoken, conversational language.  Writing  
tends to be more formal and complex.  Email shifts back and forth  
from one to the other.

> This was my attempt to render Data's comment to Spot
> in "A Fistful of Datas",
>
>     "I find it extremely difficult to predict what you
> will find acceptable."

Ah, it was a translation.  No wonder it came out so convoluted.   
Comments on the style of a translation are only helpful if your goal  
is to produce translations.

Note that Data is prone to rather formal, stilted speech.  What he  
says is rarely going to be directly translatable into straightforward  
Klingon.

> I found ghunchu'wI''s suggestion a little too choppy
> for my taste (which is, perhaps, not sufficiently
> Klingonized).

My intent was to provide contrast, so the suggestion was more  
"choppy" than I would usually have written.

> Would the following compromise be
> acceptable?
>
>     {nuq Dalajqang?  jIloymeH Qatlhqu' 'e' vItu'.}

The {'e' vItu'} part just seems superfluous.  What does it add to the  
sentence besides wordiness?

-- ghunchu'wI'

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