[Tlhingan-hol] when I was X (years old), from the age of X to Y

[lojmIt tI'wI' nuv 'utlh]

"A Klingon may be inaccurate, but he is never approximate."

lojmIt tI’wI’ nuv ‘utlh
Door Repair Guy, Retired Honorably



On Mar 3, 2014, at 5:48 AM, De'vID <de.vid.jonpin at gmail.com> wrote:

> De'vID:
>>> We know that {loSmaH ben jIboghpu'} is how a Klingon would say
>>> "I am 40 (years old)". How would you say "when I was X, I did such
>>> and such"?
> 
> QeS 'utlh:
>> Presumably anyone saying that would know how old they are now, and so
>> {loSben Qang vImoj} "I became chancellor four years ago" seems to me the
>> easiest way of putting it.
> 
> But the listener/reader doesn't necessarily know the speaker/author's
> age, especially if the time at which those words were spoken/written
> is in the past.
> 
> I am translating part of an autobiography. There is a sequence of
> "When I was X, I did such and such" in succession. The reader is not
> expected to know the author's age when he wrote those words.
> 
> De'vID:
>>> {wa'maH cha' ben jIboghpu'DI' moQbara' vIghojchoH} seems to me
>> 
>>> like it's saying the speaker is 12, and started learning Mok'bara at
>>> birth.
> 
> QeS 'utlh:
>> True. How about:
>> 
>> qaSpu'DI' DISwIj wa'maH cha'DIch moQbara' vIghojchoH.
> 
> This is exactly the solution I arrived at myself. I had wanted to
> preserve the usage of {bogh} somehow as it felt more Klingon, but
> eventually resorted to year labeling as you suggest.
> 
> De'vID:
>>> Also, how would you say "from the age of 20 to the age of 25, I studied
>>> the bat'leth under Kang"?
> 
> QeS 'utlh:
>> qaSpu'DI' DISwIj cha'maHDIch, betleH tonSaw' mughojmoHpu' qeng qaStaHvIS
>> vagh DIS.
> 
> But is it {vagh DIS} or {jav DIS}? 20 to 25 inclusive is 6 years. The
> author might be talking anywhere from 5 to just under 6 years.
> Rephrasing it in this way forces a particular interpretation.
> 
> Actually, the original text is quite un-Klingon in its imprecision.
> The author actually says, "From the age of X to Y or Y+1, these events
> happened".
> 
> -- 
> De'vID
> 
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