[Tlhingan-hol] nuq bop bom: 'ay' javmaH Soch: <voqHa'chuqghach>

[David Trimboli]

On 10/28/2011 1:19 PM, Qov wrote:

> 2. ghunchu'wI' started discussion on the thing that I found.
> On Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 10:58 AM, Qov <robyn at flyingstart.ca> wrote:
>> > jatlh "qavoqbe' bIjatlh."[38]
>> > ...
>> > [38] Ok this is a way more interesting question than the one about
>> whether I
>> > should use the word jatlh or ja' every time I use quotation marks. I
>> want to
>> > see how you react to this, then I will tell you what I am thinking
>> about it.
>>
>> Hey, that's neat. I didn't think anything of it when I read it,
>> besides quietly noting that it was properly formed as reported speech
>> according to TKD. Now that you point it out as something worth
>> focusing on, I realize that what she actually had said was {vIvoqbe'}.
>>
>> It works. I'm willing to consider it the moral equivalent of
>> tense-mangling in English reported speech: "You said you were bringing
>> donuts next week." If you think too hard, it seems broken, but it's
>> the right way to do it.
>
> As ghunchu'wI' pointed out, what 'eSSIm said was vIvoqbe' - I don't
> trust him . What Mahoun would say in English would be "You said you
> don't trust me." Outside the context of this story, if I asked you how
> to say "You said you trust me," in Klingon, everyone would say <bIjatlh
> qavoq> (or <qavoq bIjatlh>). So does the fact that the context made her
> actual word be vIvoq mean that bIjatlh qavoq is not correct here? I
> think bIjatlh qavoq means "you said you trust me" regardless of whether
> the actual words spoken were, "QIpbogh novvetlh SuD vIvoq," "DaHjaj
> qavoqchoH," "I trust you" or even "Hovmey Davan." For example in an
> earlier draft the next line was "SaH Duj bIjatlhDI'." I don't think
> Mahoun ever said the wards "SaH Duj" but he said other words that avered
> the existence of a ship, and no one would protest that <SaH Duj
> bIjatlhDI'> is not the way to say when you said there was a ship would
> they? I think a Klingon can say "You said there was a ship," without
> saying <bIjatlh INSERT_EXACT_QUOTATION_HERE.>
>
> This is the difference between quoted speech and reported speech that I
> was getting at in the earlier discussion about whether my use of
> quotation marks instead of attributed speech tags was acceptable. (For
> the record, and I'm sure the proponents of always using them have
> noticed, I've started using them almost always. I still feel that
> there's a difference when a character is saying "Person X said this" as
> opposed to when *I* am saying it. But the more I thought about it the
> more I wanted to use ja' and jatlh each time.)

At the beginning of Power Klingon, we have:

tlhIngan: nuqneH?
Human: 'IH jaj, qar'a'?
tlhIngan: jISaHbe'.
Human: bISaHbe' qatlh bIjatlh?

So your position may be supported. As far as we know, the Human is 
speaking grammatical Klingon, albeit inappropriately.

But Okrand also gave a counter-example in the old MSN newsgroup, which 
he describes as "giving a direct quotation":

tlhIngan jIH bIjatlh "you say, 'I am a Klingon'"

Nowhere has Okrand ever explained that Klingons use reported speech 
instead of direct quotations.

-- 
SuStel
http://www.trimboli.name/