[Tlhingan-hol] KLBC: plural in nationalities

Thu Nov 12 14:15:49 PST 2015

> Meanwhile, you wouldn’t tend to call it {Qo’noS Hol} because the planet

> doesn’t speak the language. It’s inhabitants do.

My interpretation is somewhat different, mainly due to the fact that Marc Okrand has explaind that the main dialect of {tlhIngan Hol} should more appropriately be called {tlhIngan wo' Hol}, "the language of the Klingon Empire" (and the main dialect is {ta' tlhIngan Hol}).

http://klingonska.org/canon/2012-04-01-email.txt

In that same e-mail, he also specified that the standard way to refer to a national langauge would be "contry + Hol", rather than "country+ngan + Hol".

________________________________
From: Will Martin <lojmitti7wi7nuv at gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2015 22:50
To: tlhInganHol discussion group
Subject: Re: [Tlhingan-hol] KLBC: plural in nationalities

For what it’s worth, I would have said {vulcan loD} and not {vulqangan loD}, since you’d be talking about a man of the planet Vulcan and not a man of a Vulcan (as in perhaps a servant or slave owned by a Vulcan). Yes, I know about the genitive. The relationship between the man and the planet is genitive. The relationship between the man and a Vulcan person is, to my ear, not so much.

Keep in mind that Okrand has explained to us that {tlhIngan Hol} literally means “a Klingon’s language”, or “the language of a Klingon”. {tlhIngan} remains a noun at all times and is not, as is commonly translated into English, an adjective. Meanwhile, you wouldn’t tend to call it {Qo’noS Hol} because the planet doesn’t speak the language. It’s inhabitants do.

pItlh
lojmIt tI'wI'nuv

On Nov 12, 2015, at 2:35 PM, Elizabeth Lawrence <elizabeth.lawrence08 at gmail.com<mailto:elizabeth.lawrence08 at gmail.com>> wrote:

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<mailto: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<mailto:mihkoun at gmail.com>>
To: tlhIngan Hol mailing list <tlhingan-hol at kli.org<mailto:tlhingan-hol at kli.org>>
Subject: [Tlhingan-hol] KLBC : plural in nationalities
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        <CAP7F2cJjdy17sNpKAusgWoh=x4Cn2FUz+eSSHXCzK_ugp6RwpA at mail.gmail.com<mailto:x4Cn2FUz%2BeSSHXCzK_ugp6RwpA at mail.gmail.com>>
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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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