tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Nov 12 12:15:49 2007
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Re: vIghro'vetlh
mI'qey:
> >> "vay' Dalajqang pagh Dalajqangbe' 'e' vIloy 'e'
> >> vInIDDI', Qatlhqu' 'e' vItu'."
ghunchu'wI':
> > There's a lot going on in this sentence. Break it up.
mI'qey:
>I suspected someone would say that. Was my attempt ungrammatical in
>Klingon, or just poor style? Human
>languages are generally able to handle this level of complexity without
>much trouble.
Doq:
>Reading TKD, I see that Okrand says Klingon sentences tend to be small. He
>gives examples of joining two separate sentences with {'e'}. He doesn't
>give any examples of multiple combinations of {'e'} conjoined sentences.
>We know that the first {'e'} refers to the sentence before it. Does the
>second {'e'} refer to the middle sentence, or to the two sentences before
>it? Does the third {'e'} refer to the third sentence, or to the three
>sentences before it? We don't know. We don't even know if this is
>grammatically legal.
AFAIK the only example of a sentence with more than one {'e'} clause:
bISuv 'e' yIwIv; bISutlh 'e' yIwIvQo'.
Choose to fight, not negotiate. TKD
I did find an example with both {'e'} and {'ej}:
juDev 'ej Dujvam ra'wI' DagheS 'e' vItlhob
I ask you to lead us as commander of this ship.
("I request that you lead us and that you assume the
duties of commander of this ship.") KGT
Doq:
>Even in human languages, unnecessary complexity is rarely a good thing.
mI'qey:
>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.
Qov:
>And that instinct can be wrong. I was good friends with a bilingual woman
>whose first language was French, and it was at the university level that
>she finally realized that the English books she was reading were not baby
>books, but that properly formed literate English sentences are simply
>shorter than the equivalent French sentences.
Certainly true today, but styles change. Just about any English book from
the 18th and even 19th century will be chock full of long, convoluted,
"French-style" sentences.
mI'qey:
> >and I can't imagine that any native speaker of English
> >would find that sentence excessively complex.
Qov:
>Not in English, no. Now change your mindset and write in Klingon, instead
>of translating English.
>If it sounds choppy in English it is more like any Klingon we've seen.
The preferred style, at least among the warrior class, seems to be: short,
pithy, to the point.
'ISqu':
>Interestingly, in "Power Klingon" we find an line where the meaning
>handled by a single *simple* sentence in English is conveyed by two
>Klingon sentences:
>
> {'uSDaj chop. chev.}
> "Bite his leg off!"
>
>whose standard Klingon version would be:
>
> {'uSDaj yIchop. yIchev.}
> Literally, <Bite his leg! Separate it!>
Also note that this is Clipped Klingon, a widely accepted style which is
"heard rather frequently":
One form of nonstandard speech that is heard rather frequently
is what is called {tlhIngan Hol poD} ("Clipped Klingon") or
simply {Hol poD} ("clipped language"). In Clipped Klingon, certain
grammatical elements are left out, but sentences otherwise match
the standard formations. (KGT 172-73)
ghunchu'wI':
>Ah, it was a translation. No wonder it came out so convoluted. [...]
>Note that Data is prone to rather formal, stilted speech. What he
>says is rarely going to be directly translatable into straightforward
>Klingon.
> [....]
>But, as I pointed out before, Data is famous for being unnecessarily
>wordy. Consider the simplest Klingon translation for "That would be
>acceptable." {maj.}
It would be fascinating to hear Data speak Klingon. Would it be as wordy
and pedantic as his English? We know Data was programmed with many, many
languages and Klingon was surely one of them, if only to have another
Klingon-speaker on board in addition to Worf. (In fact, I've often
wondered whether Data and Worf ever chatted in Klingon when they were
alone. As he was raised among humans since he was a child, Worf might well
have appreciated any opportunity to keep his own Klingon from getting rusty
and thus avoid future embarrassment.)
mI'qey:
> > Would the following compromise be acceptable?
> > {nuq Dalajqang? jIloymeH Qatlhqu' 'e' vItu'.}
ghunchu'wI':
>The {'e' vItu'} part just seems superfluous. What does it add to the
>sentence besides wordiness?
mI'qey:
>It adds the idea that the difficulty mentioned is specifically the
>speaker's; for all we know,
>predicting Spot's likes and dislikes may be dirt simple for anyone
>else. (Assuming that the fact that
>it's in the original, where it's no more or less superfluous than it is my
>Klingon version, isn't a
>sufficient point in its favor.)
{-law'} would probably be sufficient:
This suffix expresses any uncertainty on the speaker's part and
may even be thought of as meaning "I think" or "I suspect."
(TKD 40)
Of course, all of this discussion is not to say that Klingons can't be
wordy when necessary. The closest we have to formal, literary, written
Klingon style is in the brief texts on the various SkyBox cards. Here are
three examples showing fairly sophisticated syntax:
DaH che' ghawran. yejquv DevwI' moj ghawran 'e' wuqta' cho' 'oDwI'
Dapu'bogh janluq pIqarD HoD.
Gowron currently presides, named leader of the High Council by Captain
Jean-Luc Picard, who was acting as Arbiter of Succession. (S25)
DuraS tuq tlhIngan yejquv patlh luDub 'e' reH lunIDtaH DuraS be'nI'pu'
lurSa' be'etor je.
The sisters of the House of Duras, Lursa and B'Etor, are constantly seeking
a higher standing for the House of Duras within the Klingon High
Council. (S26)
DujvamDaq tlhIngan nuH tu'lu'bogh pov law' Hoch pov puS 'ej DujvamDaq
'op SuvwI' tu'lu'bogh po' law' tlhIngan yo' SuvwI' law' po' puS.
It [the Imperial Klingon Vessel Pagh] has the best weapons and some of
the finest warriors in the Klingon fleet. (S7)
BTW this last example (S7) is probably the single most complicated sentence
we've ever seen from Okrand.
--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons