[Tlhingan-hol] KLBC: plural in nationalities

[Elizabeth Lawrence]

I think that qunnoQ was asking about insulting people by calling them
"Ferengi dogs."  In that case, if he is using the construction <<verengan
Ha'DIbaH>>, Ha'DIbaH is the descriptor.

This is somewhat idiomatic, so I am not certain that it makes sense as a
Klingon insult.  Not all cultures consider animals inferior/insulting in
this way.  However, I would not use a plural at all (they are always
optional as 'arHa' pointed out).  Instead, I would say it as a complete
sentence.

verengan Ha'DIbaH SoH!
You are a Ferengi dog!

verengan Ha'DIbaH tlhIH!
You (plural) are Ferengi dogs!

This uses the pronoun to specify the plural, and makes it clear that it is
an insult, rather than a description of Ferengi animals.

For the first set of questions, I would personally translate it thus:

vulqangan loD - the Vulcan man

vulqanganpu' - the Vulcans (a group of vulcans)

Hoch vulqanganpu' - the Vulcan people (all the vulcans)


I hope this helps,
be''etlh

On Thu, Nov 12, 2015 at 2:07 PM, John R. Harness <cartweel at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi! I’m ‘arHa, the newly-minted Beginner’s Grammarian! Thanks for your
> question, and for tagging your thread with KLBC. I’ll take a shot at
> answering your questions before opening it up to the rest of the community
> for consideration.
>
>
> I am confident that I can clearly answer two aspects of your questions.
> First of all, concerning making nationalities (or species names) plural, a
> general rule applies: Pluralization is always optional. You can add the
> <-pu’> if you think it is necessary, but you can always leave it off and
> let context do the work for you if that is what you want.
>
>
> Secondly, in phrases like <verengan Ha’DIbaH>, we are really talking about
> a <Ha’DIbaH>, not a <verengan>. The <verangan> simply tells us information
> about the animal; <Ha’DIbaH> is the main noun in the phrase. So, we would
> use the <-mey> plural suffix because the <Ha’DIbaH> is incapable of speech.
> Of course, one might use <-pu> for artistic reasons, say in a story about a
> talking Ha’DIbaH, but that is not the norm!
>
>
> As for what I think is your most central question, I’ll describe how I’d
> approach it but admit that other speakers might have a clearer idea than me.
>
> As far as I understand it, each of the ways that you have pluralized
> <verengan Ha’DIbaH> is correct, but you may choose one way of saying it to
> make subtle changes to what you mean. Normally, I think we would say
> <verengan Ha’DIbaHmey> to talk about animals from Ferenginar. <verenganpu’
> Ha’DIbaHmey> says the same thing, more or less, but you may be emphasizing
> that the animals belong to a group of Ferengi. <verenganpu’ Ha’DIbaH>
> suggests an animal belonging to several Ferengi.
>
>
> It is my understanding that <verengan Ha’DIbaH> is, technically speaking,
> a noun-noun construction. You can review the rules for this in section 3.4
> of The Klingon Dictionary.
>
> Please let me know if this is unclear or sparks new questions!
>
>
> [And since this is my first BG response I welcome input from other
> speakers, especially on the last point!]
>
> 'arHa
> Beginner's Grammarian
>
>
>
>> Message: 2
>> Date: Thu, 12 Nov 2015 10:59:26 +0200
>> From: qunnoQ HoD <mihkoun at gmail.com>
>> To: tlhIngan Hol mailing list <tlhingan-hol at kli.org>
>> Subject: [Tlhingan-hol] KLBC : plural in nationalities
>> Message-ID:
>>         <CAP7F2cJjdy17sNpKAusgWoh=
>> x4Cn2FUz+eSSHXCzK_ugp6RwpA at mail.gmail.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>>
>> should i put the KLBC,the way i did ? if not,please tell me..
>>
>> anyway,I would like to ask about something that confuses me.
>>
>>
>> in english one can say :
>>
>> the german people (plural)
>> a german man/woman
>>
>> the belgian people (plural)
>> a belgian man/woman
>>
>> the italian people (plural)
>> an italian man/woman
>>
>> ..and so on
>>
>> on the other hand one can also say :
>>
>> the germans (plural)
>> the belgians (plural)
>> the italians (plural)
>>
>>
>> in klingon when i say {verengan} does this mean both singular/plural
>> depending on the context ?
>> i can't understand when to say {verengan} and when {verenganpu'}.
>>
>> if i want to call a group of people <<ferengi dogs>> (my favorite klingon
>> expression), should i say
>> {verengan Ha'DIbaHmey},{verenganpu' Ha'DIbaH} or {verenganpu'
>> Ha'DIbaHmey} ?
>>
>> ..which brings up another question
>>
>> if the plural suffix is to be put on the second word,should i use {-pu'}
>> or
>> {-mey} ? I mean the ferengi may be able to talk,but the dog isn't..
>>
>> cpt qunnoQ
>>
>
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