tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Nov 28 16:50:36 2007
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Re: Now and then?
I'd avoid use of time nouns and just say something like {lengmey tIQ
lengmey tIQHa' je}. It would be better if we had a verb for "be
modern", but I can't find a better one than {tIQHa'}.
I'd expect a church with this sign to be talking about traveling in
biblical times and comparing them to modern travels. Churches tend to
like to talk about the Bible, in my limited experience. Biblical
times qualify as {tIQ}.
We know that time-related nouns go at the beginning of a sentence, or
at least one at a time. You are right. We don't know about multiples.
It's a minor assumption about how these nouns can be used as normal
nouns. I think we have a few examples. Something like {HeghmeH QaQ
DaHjaj} and all that rot.
It's probably a little more assumptive to use them in noun-noun
constructions just because it assumes the way Klingons use
abstractions like time in their language. It might not be wrong at
all. It might be perfect. It also could just sound surprisingly strange.
Only real Klingons know for sure. Where's Maltz when you really need
him?
We don't know about punctuation. We can use it because we're using a
romanized alphabet that is merely a written recording of sound, and
punctuation gives us phrasing. Meanwhile a colon refers forward to
something a lot the way that {'e'} refers back to something in
Klingon. I'm not sure that a colon works in Klingon, given word order
issues. Would we need an anti-colon to point backwards?
Doq
On Nov 28, 2007, at 12:13 PM, Steven Boozer wrote:
> This morning I passed a sign outside a Unitarian church advertising
> the
> next sermon: "Voyages: now and then"... Like a lot of us, I
> tried translating this into Klingon and immediately saw the
> problem: Whenever two adverbials occur in a clause they usually just
> follow each other at the beginning, but "now" and "then" more or less
> contradict each other. What conjugation, if any, can I use here?
>
> Use {'ej} to link implied but omitted clauses:
>
> lengmey: DaH 'ej ngugh
>
> Use {'ej} to link two short clauses:
>
> DaH maleng 'ej ngugh maleng
>
> Use {je} to link the words (i.e. as vocabulary items):
>
> lengmey: DaH ngugh je
>
> No conjugation. Use punctuation:
>
> lengmey: DaH, ngugh
>
> DaH, ngugh: lengmey
>
> No conjugation. Rephrase repeating the noun (punctuate to taste):
>
> DaH lengmey, ngugh lengmey
> lengmey: DaH - lengmey: ngugh
> "voyages now, voyages then"
>
> No conjugation. Rephrase repeating a verb phrase:
>
> DaH maleng, ngugh maleng
>
> Ideas? Remember this is a title so it should be brief, pithy and
> suggestive - or at least intriguing.
>
>
> --
> Voragh
> Ca'Non Master of the Klingons
>
>
>