[Tlhingan-hol] tagha' MARSDaq BEAGLE2 nejwI’’e’ chillu’bogh lutulu’

[Brent Kesler]

I was pondering something similar a few months back. I wanted to translate,
"These words are difficult to translate." I tried:

1. ?mughlu'meH Qatlh mu'meyvam.


But I thought that might mean something like "These words are being
difficult *so that *someone translates them", or "These words are being
difficult in order to be translated", which is obviously not what I was
going for.

I think part of the problem is that in English, a sentence like "It is
difficult to run." has the same superficial structure as "He is running to
raise money". My intuitions get cross-wired whenever I want to translate a
sentence that starts "It is difficult to __". In the first sentence, "it"
refers to the verb phrase "to run", but in the second sentence, "he" does
NOT refer to the verb phrase "to raise money".

{-meH} is an obvious choice for the second sentence:

2. Huch bajmeH qetlI' ghaH.


However, while looking through some canon examples, I decided that I might
be overthinking it. I might be getting so caught up on defining {-meH} as a
purpose marker, that I'm ignoring its actual use. I found some examples
that suggest my original translation, {?mughlu'meH Qalth mu'meyvam} would
be acceptable.

3. Heghlu'meH QaQ jajvam.


I'm not saying anything like "The day is being good *so that* someone will
die." Another English translation would be "It is good to die today". We
could easily replace {QaQ} with {Qatlh} to say "It if difficult to die
today ".

4. Heghlu'meH Qatlh jajvam.


Another canon example:

5. tlhutlhmeH HIq ngeb qaq law', bIQ qaq puS.


This doesn't mean that fake ale is being preferable *in order to* drink.

These example sentences make me think that a {-meH} clause is almost a
commentary on whatever follows it. You can say "For the purpose of X" and
the Klingon sentences make sense.

2a. For the purpose of earning money, he is running.
3a. For the purpose of dying, this day is good.
4a. For the purpose of dying, this day is difficult.
5a. For the purpose of drinking, fake ale is preferable to water.

It's almost as if Okrand says "For the purpose of ..." whenever he
translates something using {-meH}.

This makes me think that, regarding Beagle 2, we could say:

6. tera' Hovtay' yuQ loSDIchDaq lengmeH, Qatlh.


I remember finding a perfect example to support my argument a while back,
but I can't find it now, and I'm at work. Maybe someone who know canon
better than I do can find some examples (or counterexamples).

bI'reng

On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 1:44 PM, SuStel <sustel at trimboli.name> wrote:

> On 1/20/2015 1:27 PM, SuStel wrote:
>
>> On 1/20/2015 1:17 PM, lojmitti7wi7nuv at gmail.com wrote:
>>
>>  On Jan 20, 2015, at 12:19 PM, Gaerfindel <gaerfindel at hotmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>  Qatlh tera' Hovtay' yuQ loSDIchDaq lengmeH vay'
>>>>
>>>
>  I think he wants to say "traveling on Mars is difficult" (or
>> complicated). This is why he asked for a sentence as subject.
>>
>> quljIb, you can't make a sentence the subject of another sentence. Only
>> a noun or noun phrase can be the subject of {Qatlh}.
>>
>> Qatlh Mars ghorDaq lengmeH Qu'
>> a task for the purpose of traveling on the surface of Mars is
>> difficult/complex
>>
>> It's clumsy in English, but not so much in Klingon.
>>
>> Qatlh Mars ghorDaq leng
>> a journey on the surface of Mars is difficult/complex
>>
>> {leng} is also a noun! :)
>>
>
> toH! "Traveling *TO* Mars is difficult" Hechlu'pu'.
>
> ghuy'cha'! You can't say {Mars ghorDaq leng} as a noun phrase, and shame
> on me for saying it! (There's another English-ism that's crept into
> Klingon.)
>
> Qatlh Mars leng
> a Mars-journey is difficult/complex
>
> Presumably, in context, one knows that you're talking about traveling TO
> Mars, not on it.
>
> Otherwise,
>
> Qatlh MarsDaq lengmeH Qu'
> a task for the purpose of traveling to Mars is difficult/complex
>
> or even
>
> Qatlh MarsDaq lengmeH mIw
> procedure(s) for traveling to Mars is(are) difficult/complex
>
> If you're talking about the complexity of the apparatus, try
>
> Qatlh Mars Duj
> Qatlh Mars nejwI'
>
>
> --
> SuStel
> http://www.trimboli.name/
>
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>
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