[Tlhingan-hol] Question on Klingon Negation

De'vID de.vid.jonpin at gmail.com
Sun Jun 29 08:58:16 PDT 2014


On 24 Jun 2014 17:43, <lojmitti7wi7nuv at gmail.com> wrote:
>> For example, would "I don't hear anything" (in response to something
like "Did you hear that?") be properly translated as {pagh vIQoybe'}, {vay'
vIQoybe'}, or something else like simply {vIQoybe'}?
>
> If you want us to tell you the best answer to a question in Klingon, it
really helps for you to give us the question in Klingon. There is no
literal, word for word Klingon translation for "Did you hear that?" given
that and the way you compromise your question when translating it would
make it much easier to form the best answer in the negative.
>
> Hmm. I've never seen this noun suffix on this particular noun, but
perhaps: {vay'vetlh DaQoy'a'?}

Klingon can't express "this" or "that" without an accompanying noun
({ghu'}, {Doch}, {wanI'}, etc.). In this case, "Did you hear that?" really
means "Did you hear that *sound*?" {wabvetlh DaQoy'a'?}

Klingon actually has something much more interesting than double negation,
and that is that it doesn't use negation in some situations where English
or another language would.

"There's nothing happening here."
{naDev qaS wanI' ramqu'}

So one possible way to express "I don't hear anything" might be {wab tamqu'
vIQoy}.

-- 
De'vID
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