[Tlhingan-hol] 19 words to create

Tue Dec 22 10:33:46 PST 2015

Apparently not all of this conversation is getting to my inbox; I'm getting a little confused as to who said what :-(.

-QISta'

----- Reply message -----
De: qov at kli.org
Fecha: mar., dic. 22, 2015 00:31
Asunto: [Tlhingan-hol] 19 words to create
Para: <tlhingan-hol at kli.org>

You’re starting to get how to look at the dictionary for words that express your ideas. some of them are getting a little too creative—going where tlhIngan Hol doesn’t.

Thanks for revealing how you came to think –beH meant –less. That had me confused for a while.  Klingon suffixes are very specialized: they can only be added to the appropriate type of word in the appropriate order, or else they don’t mean what you think they  mean.

For example, -beH is a verb suffix that can only be used on a verb with a subject that is a device. The meaning it imparts is that the subject is set up/ready to perform the action of the verb.  The syllable beH in yIvbeH has nothing to do with readiness or lack, any more than the ld in English bald denotes lack. jIbbeH makes less sense than if you tried to get an English speaker to understand “grassld” to mean “wear out a patch of grass.”

Smushing two verbs or a noun and a verb (like DIrlaS) together to make a new word isn’t a thing. When you see what looks like that in the dictionary, it’s based on older roots or no’Hol.

Your suggestion of nenHom would be great if nen was a noun meaning adult, but as a noun it means maturity, growth or maturation.

In context SuD is usually understood as blonde. I put on a skit at the last qep’a’ of <jIboy SuD, wej mIl’oD je>. See if you can untangle that.

Aside from, “we can already say that, just think about it”, another reason new speaker posts of the form, “Klingon lacks this list of words” are dumped on is that the fun part of the hobby is using the existing grammar and vocabulary to say what has to be said. Winning is doing that. Asking for a new word is surrendering.

not jegh tlhIngan. = A Klingon never surrenders.

  - Qov ‘utlh

--

Online Klingon Course free to all KLI members: http://www.kli.org/members-only/klcp-prep/

From: Jesse Manoogian [mailto:boyfromtheabyss at yahoo.com] 
Sent: December 21, 2015 22:27
To: tlhingan-hol at kli.org
Subject: Re: [Tlhingan-hol] 19 words to create

>>Hi, Andrew,
>>
>>I'm going to make a guess that you are trying to describe some
>>specific people, perhaps yourself and your family, or perhaps
>>characters in a story.
>>
>>I have a suggestion: why don't you try to do that, using vocabulary we
>>have? For example, instead of "He wears braces", try writing "Metal
>>teeth-straighteners are installed in his mouth", and see how far you
>>get. We can help you if you get stuck.
>>
>>I'm willing to bet that whatever you are thinking of writing can be
>>expressed using vocabulary we already have.

Thanks, De'viD. And by the way, I'm not seeking to write anything describing people I know, nor characters in a story.

Let me have a go at the terms:

be blonde: SuD (be yellow)
be straight (of hair): beQ (be flat)
be curly: gho (circle, hoop -- this was the closest I could find to "be round")
be wavy: perhaps an adhective derived from yu'egh (wave)
be bald: jIbbeH (hairless)
be hazel: maybe some hazel-colored species of plant or animal in the Star Trek World? (Confession time: I've never watched Star Trek. Yes, I'm that much of a geek.)
freckles: Maybe a word for spot? (Although I don't see "spot" in the dictionary.)
wrinkle: bentlhegh (age-line)
glasses: mIn (eye) or puS (sight) + (a word for glass?)
braces: You already had a go at this one.
tattoo: DIrlaS (skin-ink-up)
jeans: ???
polo shirt: ???
tank top: (shirt) tlhaybeH? (tlhaybeH is "sleeveless" . . . there are two words for shirt; "wep" is sleeved, so using it with "tlhaybeH" would sound like an oxymoron, but "yIvbeH" is sleeveless, so using it with "tlhaybeH" would sound like a redundancy.)
headphones: nachQoywi' (head-hearer . . . a calque from the German Kopfhörer)
skateboard: rutlh'echlet (wheel-board)
guitar: javHurDagh (six + stringed instrument)
bass: javHurDagh jaQ (deep guitar)
teen, adolescent, youth, young adult: nenHom (adult-DIM)

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