[Tlhingan-hol] Qun qa'

[Will Martin]

There are very few here who have been writing to this list longer than I have, and I STILL frequently deal with public embarrassment for my blunders. Why should YOU have it easier? If you want to be embarrassed more times than I’ve been, you have your work cut out for you.

And I don’t intend to make it easier on you by somehow changing and being embarrassed for my errors less often from here out, either. No. During those years you spend trying to catch up with me, I’ll still be out there, making mistakes where no one has made mistakes before.

[cue the music]

pItlh
lojmIt tI'wI'nuv



> On Nov 17, 2015, at 12:01 PM, Michael Roney, Jr. <nahqun at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> No, you're absolutely right.
> 
> I wrote it without {-'e'} at first, but it sounded wrong to my ear.
> After looking up {'oH} in my dictionary, it seems that almost all of the examples I have use {-'e'} on a noun after {'oH}, meaning that my ear is used to hearing {'oH} and {-'e'} together.
> 
> 
> On the positive side, I'm starting to write more without relying on my dictionary for every word.
> It's slightly embarrassing to make blunders such as this in public, but at least I'm learning from them.
> 
> 
> 
> On Tue, Nov 17, 2015 at 11:45 AM, Will Martin <lojmitti7wi7nuv at gmail.com <mailto:lojmitti7wi7nuv at gmail.com>> wrote:
> Sorry.
> 
> Having seen this one go by a couple of times without comment, I have to just touch on one thing:
> 
> pItlh
> lojmIt tI'wI'nuv
> 
> 
> 
>> On Nov 17, 2015, at 10:54 AM, Rohan Fenwick <qeslagh at hotmail.com <mailto:qeslagh at hotmail.com>> wrote:
>> ...
>> jangpu' De'vID, jatlh:
>> > cha' mu'tlheghmey tu'lu''a'?
>> 
>> jang je naHQun, jatlh:
>> > wa' mu'tlhegh 'oH'e'. chevmey Da {tIQHa'}.
>> 
>> {chevmey}? {chuvmey} DaHechpu''a'? jImIS jIH.
> 
> I see no justification for putting {-‘e’} on {‘oH} here. If there were a subject of {‘oH}, as in {DujwIj ‘oH Dujvetlh’e’}, then the subject noun would get {-‘e’}, not the {‘oH}. Most of the time a noun with {-‘e’} is placed among the words before the main clause, declaring the topic of the sentence, as in {HoD’e’ QaQchu’ Qanqor.} “Considering captains, Krankor is perfectly good,” or “Krankor is perfectly good as a captain." We have canon for these uses.
> 
> On this mailing list, it’s also been used in relative clauses to make clear which noun is the noun that participates in both the relative clause and the main clause, as in {QIpqu’ Qanqor tIchbogh nuv’e’.} “The person who insults Krankor is very stupid.” Without the {-‘e’}, you could mistakenly think that meant “Krankor, who is insulted by the person, is stupid,” which would be an unwise statement to make in the company of Krankor’s friends.
> 
> Meanwhile, I’m not sure if we’ve ever seen a canon example of Okrand using {-‘e’} in this way. I’d sorely miss it if it were ever declared a bad use of {-‘e’}, but I don’t think Okrand himself has ever made a position clear on this.
> 
> Meanwhile, I see no justification for {wa’ mu’tlhegh ‘oH’e’.} There’s no reason to put the {-‘e’} there, and since it is a noun suffix used on a pronoun that is functioning as a verb, it appears to break the grammar of the sentence as a whole. We know that we can put verb suffixes on pronouns when they are functioning as the verb “to be”, as in {naDev jIHtaH.} “I am here.”
> 
> I’m trying to think of any condition in which a pronoun takes a noun suffix… even when it’s not being used as a verb… This is one of those things I’ve never thought about before. It’s somewhat refreshing. I don’t run into grammatical points in Klingon that I’ve never thought about before very often.
> 
> Maybe I’m just having some kind of stuck mental function. I can’t come up with a reason to put a noun suffix on a pronoun. I can think of several verb suffixes that work, but no noun suffixes. Yes, pronouns can be used in Klingon as verbs or nouns, but appropriate affixes are limited, and all the ones I can come up with are verb suffixes.
> 
> Maybe if I were screaming at you, making sure that you understood that you, and you alone were the problem, I might say {bIqay’ SoH’e’ neH jay’!} but in that case, I’m obviously not using {SoH} as a verb.
> 
> Mischievously, I guess if I wanted to compliment you on your helmet, I could jokingly say, {‘oHtaH SoH’e’!} “It’s YOU.” But there’s so much grammatically and idiomatically wrong with that. It would only be a joke.
> 
> Sorry to go on so long. Drop the {-‘e’} on {‘oH}. It really jumped out at me as wrong.
> 
>> QeS 'utlh
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> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> ~Michael Roney, Jr.
> Freelance Translator

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