tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Sep 01 03:53:34 2010

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Re: gha'tlhIq

lojmIt tI'wI' nuv ([email protected]) 

Responses in line below.

Sent from my iPad

On Sep 1, 2010, at 4:49 AM, Jeremy Silver <[email protected]> wrote:

> Many thanks for your improvments. I did wonder if I was using jaj correctly.

Well, this is just opinion. Others may decide that I'm mistaken and offer THEIR opinions.

> I think all those "-bogh noun 'ej -bogh" constructs of mine added complexity 
> and reduced clarity.

It is easy for us to overuse -bogh. Often in Klingon, one writes more, shorter sentences rather than writing complex relative clause combinations. Basically, a Klingon relative clause doesn't carry as much weight as an English one.  

> The canon in KGT p82 for describing colour has:
> "*SuDqu'* ("very SuD") which would probably be described as "green"..."

You may be simply right about this one, though if you want to disambiguate SuD, it is probably better to use the rur construction and dedicate a whole sentence to that aspect of the description. Otherwise, remember that Klingons don't care enough about this distinction to come up with separate words for these colors. If you don't have a special reason for distinguishing them, but you do it anyway, you might come off as somewhat poetic or even sissy, like a guy who makes a point of using words like chartreuse and mauve.

> I wanted to be precise in describing the hue.

This is probably not a common trait among Klingons. If they cared about this color distinction, they would have words for it.

> This page also provided a construct for expressing a noun with two states or 
> qualities at the same time:
> "To describe yellow tea... one must say *SuD Dargh 'ej wow* ("The tea is *SuD* 
> and light") or *SuDbogh Dargh 'ej wovbogh* ("The tea that is *SuD* and 
> light")."

Yes, but that is ONE noun with TWO adjectives. Since adjectives also exist as verbs, you use the sentence conjunction when combining them.  In your case, you had two NOUNS. Each relative clause referred to a different noun, so the conjunction should have been a noun conjunction, if you were just listing the two nouns. As it turns out, I thought that the nouns were better expressed as a noun-noun construction, since it wasn't a daytime and a morning. It was a daytime's morning, or a morning of the daytime.

> I like the way you mixed the adjective and relative clause. It seems clearer 
> to me. I wasn't sure you could do that given the above canon.

I think both work. In this case, it seemed cleaner to speak of a small, green thing that is slimy instead of a small thing which is green and slimy. If the verbs weren't adjectival, you would not have this choice.

> I don't agree I meant to say the day (which is long) and the morning (which is 
> hot), though.
> 
> Using the yellow tea example I have *nI'bogh pem 'ej tujbogh* to describe the 
> day as both long and hot.
> 
> Would *tujbogh pem nI'* be clearer?

Not really. It creates a problem of putting an adjective between two nouns of a noun-noun construction, if you still plan on putting po in there. Then you have a problem that requires more thought than I have time for right now.

> However, this long and hot day is only an allusion to the term "midsummer". Is 
> there a better way to describe midsummer?

Canon doesn't really tell us much about seasons. We don't even know if Qo'noS has seasons, and if not, perhaps there is no standard way to explain them on planets that do. Tropical languages usually have a word for the rain that happens at the middle of the day. 

> I'm aware of *yoHbogh matlhbogh je SuvwI'* from the anthem, would this 
> construction be better?

Perhaps, but this is poetry. 

> I believe the whole relative clause acts as a noun-phrase, and thus usable in 
> a noun-noun construct.
> 
> e.g. *tujbogh pem nI' po*
> 
> Is this belief incorrect?

Nope. Noun-noun doesn't tolerate any words between the two nouns.

> No idea if whatever the Vogon found there was slimy or not (didn't look too 
> closely ;). Although I like describing things as such I can get rid of the 
> extra descriptive here. I'm pretty sure they don't exude actual window 
> adhesive, that'd be far too useful.
> 
> Maybe I should go with *'IqnaH QaD*, but I still want to describe it as green.
> 
> How would you express this concept?

You presume that I would. Perhaps 'I' butlh.

> Would *SuDqu'bogh 'IqnaH QaD* work?

Perhaps.

> I was very unsure of the positioning of the *DochHom* phrase in relation to 
> the *vItu'pu'bogh*, I found myself confused by the examples in TKD and in 
> relating them to the sentence I was constructing. The *DochHom* is indeed what 
> was found.
> 
> Is there a place where relative clause examples are better explained?

Few topics have inspired longer arguments on this list than relative clauses. English speakers are often tempted to extend them far beyond their expressive powers in Klingon, where they are useful, but not common.

> I like the explicit marking of the object with 'e'. Should have thought of 
> that myself.
> 
> All those *-bogh*'s were getting to me. When I realised we needed another on 
> the verb *bop*, I decided to seek expert assistance before my brain exploded 
> into lumps of green putty.

qay'be'.

> Thanks,
> mupwI'

lojmIt tI'wI'nuv


> On Wednesday 01 September 2010 02:00:57 you wrote:
>> The pieces of this are really nice, but the word order could use some
>> attention. DochHom is the direct object of vItu'bogh, right? But you
>> placed it after the verb instead of in front of it.  And if you are using
>> SuD as an adjective for DochHom, you don't want -bogh on it, and the
>> translation gives no justification for adding -qu'.
>> 
>> So, just making those changes, you get:
>> 
>> nI'bogh jaj 'ej tujbogh po...
>> 
>> But there's another problem already. You have used the conjunction for two
>> sentences between two noun phrases. Relative clauses don't really work as
>> sentences. What you really mean here is: "the day (which is long) and the
>> morning (which is hot). Two nouns, not two sentences.
>> 
>> There's a semantic problem, too. The day is 24 hours long, be it summer or
>> winter. You don't want jaj. You want pem.
>> 
>> nI'bogh pem po tuj...
>> 
>> On a hot morning of a long daytime... The morning belongs to the day. They
>> are not equals to be merely listed. They have a relationship, a hierarchy.
>> No conjunction needed.
>> 
>> 'I'wIjDaq charbogh DochHom'e' SuD vItu'bogh bop gha'tlhIqvam.
>> 
>> The little thing is the topic of the ode, right? With a string of words
>> that long, it might be good to mark it as such, explicitly.
>> 
>> I don't tend to think of putty as slimy, but I'll bow to your expertise on
>> this.
>> 
>> lojmIt tI'wI'nuv
>> 
>> Sent from my iPad
>> 
>> On Aug 31, 2010, at 5:30 PM, Jeremy Silver <[email protected]> 
> wrote:
>>> There is another slashdot discussion, this time concerning the article
>>> voragh mentioned.
>>> 
>>> http://idle.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=10/08/30/1328253
>>> 
>>> In this discussion one joker, issued a challenge:
>>> "Time for someone to really get their geek on and translate "Ode To A
>>> Small Lump Of Green Putty I Found In My Armpit One Midsummer Morning"."
>>> 
>>> Normally I throw something together and post away, but this time the best
>>> I could come up with is pretty complicated and difficult for me to think
>>> through:
>>> 
>>> nI'bogh jaj 'ej tujbogh po, 'I'wIjDaq vItu'pu'bogh SuDqu'bogh DochHom 'ej
>>> charbogh bop gha'tlhIq
>>> 
>>> The ode of respect is about a small green and slimy thing I found in my
>>> armpit, on a morning of a day which is long and hot.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Could the more experienced grammarians decipher the above as what I
>>> intended? Were there any glaring grammatical blunders?
>>> Could you suggest improvements or constructs from your own translations
>>> or ways to re-cast?
>>> 
>>> Thanks,
>>> mupwI'
> 
> 
>

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