[Tlhingan-hol] voDleH Sut chu' [original header was mangled]

[Robyn Stewart]

At 09:54 08/02/2012, you wrote:
> >>Wasn't sure if that's allowed, but it makes sense, since ben appears
> >>to act almost like a noun.
> > Allowed!  Until what seems like incredibly recently it was the only
> > way to say it. ben, nem, Hu' and leS are the original time anchor
> > words. Everything else is a Johnny-come-lately.
>
>qar'a'? Dajqu'! nuqDaq De'vam Daghoj?

I didn't mean to imply that I have special knowledge. I'm just being 
curmudgeonly, in that ben is a much older word than ret, so {ben 
law'} was in use in the 1980s but {DIS law' ret} seems like 
vocabulary I just learned yesterday. (DON'T tell me how old it is). 
Are you objecting to {ben law'} on some grounds? I'm baffled as to 
why you would allow {DIS law'} and not {ben law'}.

>Good point. My main concern was avoiding a statement that seemed too trivial.
>"Many years ago, an Emperor was alive."

I think it's a fine way to start a story.

> >Fairy tales and legends it's better to write flowing understandable
> >Klingon words than slavishly reproduce the English. It's not a
> >physics textbook or an instruction manual.
>
>jIQochbe'. You're talking to a person who's thinking of making a 
>Klingon adaptation of "The Raven" with no mention of birds ;)

What? When we have twenty useless bird words?

> >>One more possibility is 'elwI'pu'Daq chaHtaH cha' tojwI'pu''e'.
> >>("Two tricksters are at the enterers.")
> > Again it makes me wonder if they are on them? In them?
>
>I feel that "among them" is the only sensible way to interpret this, 
>and that it's therefore unambiguous enough.
>[Well, maybe one COULD interpret it as though they were traveling 
>TOWARDS the enterers, which would be unfortunate. In that case, 
>tlhej really would be preferable.
>I was tempted to use [lu]tu'lu', but I didn't want to make it out as 
>though one had discovered them to be tricksters right from the start.]

What is the English that makes you so intent to get across the 
feeling of them hiding in the crowd? Many people enter the city. 
Probably lots of them are up to no good. Two of them are going to con 
the voDleH.  I'm not saying 'elwI'pu'Daq can't be understood as 
among. I'm just telling you the ideas that I have to visit to get there.

> >>HIvqa' Denmargh! I meant to write <'e' chID>.
> >
> >Then I don't quite understand it. For the sake of nothing he admitted
> >telling the truth? He admitted telling the truth for verifiably nothing?
>
>muHIv not 'e' mev veqlargh. Hoch qabDaq tujqu' qul! HochDaq qul 
>yIchenmoH ghotI' ru'!

Hey, have you seen one of my installments go out without a stupid 
typo?  I let your story there shame me a little. I should be doing 
cleaner work.

>ngIl. ngIl is what I meant to write.

So it should be {paghna'vaD vIt 'e' ngIl} ?

"He dared to tell the truth regarding nothing at all."  Still escapes 
me.  Do we need {'e' ngIlbe'} instead?

> >But {pagh leghchu'} seems to me to imply {'op legh}. Saying {pagh
> >legh} shows he saw nothing, but adding -chu' is qualifying the legh
> >not the pagh. Maybe you want paghna' legh, or maybe I'm the only one
> >who reads it this way.
>
>As I see it, it's the legh I want to qualify, because when there is 
>nothing to see, to see nothing is to see perfectly.
>paghna' leghchu' works for me, though. pagh legh works in and of 
>itself, but I'd like leghchu' to be contrasted with leghHa'.
>That being said, that may be another one of my valQISmey*.
>
>*I hereby coin valQIS to mean "a darling in need of killing", in 
>reference and deference to the great Qugh joH.

Heh. The thing here is to avoid modifying a part of the sentence that 
can be modified in order to channel the modification towards the part 
you really want to change.

Like if I say {chIch HoHbe'} to translate "She didn't kill him on 
purpose," when really it means "She deliberately did not kill him," 
and I need {bong HoH} to be sure of transmitting my meaning.  I still 
make this error. ghunchu'wI' hits me with sticks.

> >>I was expecting some eyebrows to be raised about this.
> >>Which part do you not accept? Using QI' much'a' to refer to a
> >>military parade,
> >Oh no problem with that at all.  I didn't even stop to think about it.
>
>vImerlu'.

{QI' much} would be a ... one of those things where the soldiers line 
up and the visiting general or queen walks by and says very nice, 
what's the English? I think it might also be "parade," but {QI' much} 
is definitely more like the ... are you old enough to remember May 
Day in the Soviet Union?

> >or using <X wa'Hu'> to mean "the day before X"?
>
> >Yeah, it's glossed as "days ago."  I'd really like it to mean "days
> >before" defaulting to "days before now" so that I can use loSleS in
> >narrative to mean "four days later." I usually have to make such time
> >things be in dialogue so I can.
>
>Good point. I still think it may be valid, but how about qaSDI' much 
>wa'Hu' ram <whatever> ("they do something yesterday when the 
>presentation happens")? Very strange in English, but part of me likes it.

The bit I don't like is that it gears me up for the action of the 
sentence to be at the {much}, and then backs me up again. It's like 
if I'm at the airport and a plane is approaching from the east and he 
reports "I'm five miles west of [some point he's already past]." So 
you look west for him and then when he gets to the end of the 
sentence you have to turn around and look east.

>Another alternative is to do something like wa'leS qaS QI' much'a'. 
>DaHjaj ram <whatever>. ("At this point in our story, the parade 
>happens tomorrow. Tonight, stuf happens.")

I like that one! It pulls me into the story. I may be stealing it.

> >My difficulty understanding it may have been in the four noun and a
> >verb pileup before the adverb.
>
>Good point. I do feel that many of my sentences are unnecessarily 
>bulky, which is indicative of translation and therefore rather unfortunate.

For a story like this I'd say read it, retell it without looking at 
the original, then add in anything essential to the story that you 
missed, or got in the wrong order.

> >Remember, I haven't seen your English original and haven't read the
> >story in maybe thirty years, but immediately understood military
> >parade with no thought.
>
>Dajqu'! That being said, I hadn't even read the whole thing before, 
>and yet I knew there was a parade; I think certain parts of that 
>story are nailed into many of our heads simply due to the cultures 
>in which we grew up, just as are parts of "The Ugly Duckling", 
>"Hansel and Gretel" and "The Boy Who Cried Wolf".

I challenge everyone who is sitting back pontificating on the exact 
uses of {-taH} to write a Klingon version of one of those, *without 
consulting an English or other language version*. Just write the 
story as you remember it, in Klingon.

> >paq'batlh includes several instances of phrases similar to <jatlhDI'
> >val> ("he/she spoke wisely"). I suppose I could write <jangDI' yuD
> >ta'>, but that would destroy the rhyme, anyway, so then I may as
> >well go with the original, which is more accurate.
>
> >I like jangDI' yuD better than batlhHa' jang. I think it should be
> >left more as an exercise to the reader whether this action is
> >batlhHa'. Can you work with neplI'bogh?
>
>I rather like neplI'bogh; gives the idea of lying towards an end.
>That being said, if one is to do away with the alliteration, perhaps 
>one might as well just write <jang voDleH>.

I wasn't paying attention to the poetry. I must admit that I thought 
the layout there was a formatting problem (my mailer gives me many) 
on first go-round.

>Another alternative: jang SuDbogh voDleH

I don't object to that.

> >tuQmoH is glossed as "put on (clothes)" not "dress someone" or "put
> >(clothes) on."
>
>I don't always trust glosses, but you may have a point.
>Interestingly, tuQHa'moH is glossed as "to undress", so perhaps it 
>really is as De'vID suggests, and tuQmoH, like lo'laH, is a set 
>expression, and one can say such things as <yopwaH 
>vItuQmoHHa'qangbe' Qel> ("I'm unwilling to drop my pants, Doctor."

I'm still working on a personal canon project so I can be better 
about such things.

> > I don't even get "the there nobility"  in English.
>Basically, the idea is that it's "the nobility pertaining to there", 
>which is to say those that are present.

Ah, as in the original was "The assembled nobles" or the like. Feel 
free to escape from words that make the Klingon more complicated and 
less clear.

>...'ach DaH jImejnIS. naDev vIcheghbej!

bIcheghDI' jIQuch.

- Qov