tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Feb 25 14:35:24 2013
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Re: [Tlhingan-hol] Invitation Translation
>> -{vatlh} nungchu'DI' -{maH}, joj chIm poQlu'. jojDaq latlh mI' tu'lu'DI', chImbe' mI' -{vatlh} je joj.
> chut 'oHbej'a'?
HISlaH. qe'SanvaD QInvam ngeHta' Hol qonwI''a':
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I thought about that when I was doing the time phrases. My thinking at the
time was something like this: 9 hundred is Hutvatlh, as you say. Normal way
to say "900." 10 hundred -- other than when talking about time -- probably
wouldn't be said in Klingon. Instead, you'd say "one thousand" (wa'SaD,
wa'SanID). So "10 hundred" is a specialized form for time only. The idea of
telling time by using "hundreds" was borrowed by Klingons from some other
culture, so it's already weird and therefore doesn't have to follow normal
Klingon rules. I separated the vatlh from the wa'maH to show that it is a
specialized usage of vatlh (wa'maHvatlh can't be a normal Klingon number). I
left it attached to Hutvatlh and so on because they happen to be regular
Klingon numbers anyway.
I could have done it either way, but as a stylistic choice I wrote it
with {vatlh} being a separate word. I thought it seemed to evoke the
spirit of the formal "3:30 o'clock p.m." phrasing that one often finds
on such invitations.
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It's worth noting that prior to EuroTalk, the standard way to mark time was with the method Hh:Mm = {[tera'] rep H-maH h M-maH m}.
This had some potential for confusion, though, because {rep wa'maH cha'} could potentially mean either "12 o'clock" or "12:02" (unless there's some disambiguator we don't know about).
> The way I did it is modeled after the "Star Trek: The Experience"
> example. But we do have a comment from Maltz letting us know that it's
> not *the* way to do it in Klingon, just *a* way.
Ah, upon inspection, it seems that is indeed how it's done that. I can buy that, then (even if I'm still partial towards the Hogh).
By the way, I'm tempted to suggest throwing in something there about how it's been heard 17 times when the sword falls, 'ach vIttlheghmey vIDuDvIp ;)
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