[Tlhingan-hol] Ten Commandments in Klingon

Sun Apr 17 12:47:11 PDT 2016

Ah, that makes sense now. So if the head noun is the subject of the relative clause, then the clause precedes the noun, but if the head noun is the object, the clause follows the noun. So let me try tackling the prologue of the Ten Commandments again:

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.
joH'a' QunlI' mISr puHvo' qalelta'bogh jIH.
{Main clause predicate}{Ablative adverbial}{Relative clause}{Subject}

And this time I'm using the verb lel (get/take out) rather than qem (bring). Better?

-qayl

Sent from my iPad

On Apr 17, 2016, at 7:37 AM, lojmIt tI'wI' nuv <lojmitti7wi7nuv at gmail.com<mailto:lojmitti7wi7nuv at gmail.com>> wrote:

You are off track on relative clauses. The relative clause INCLUDES the noun and acts in the sentence AS A NOUN. The noun's position within the relative clause is wholly dependent upon its role in the relative clause.

Think of a relative clause as if it were a separate sentence. The sentence tells you something about the head noun. That head noun might be the subject or it might be the object. Let's make up examples of each. I'm on a mission. My friend accompanies me.

Qu' vItoy'. mutlhej jupwI'.

Each of these sentences becomes a relative clause if we add {-bogh} to the verb. These relative clauses can then be used in a sentence as if they were nouns:

Qu' vItoy'bogh toy' mutlheghbogh jupwI'.

My friend, who accompanies me, serves the mission which I serve.

My friend serves the mission. Which friend? The one who accompanies me. Which mission? The one which I serve.

You can think of the semantic MEANING of the relative clause as adjectival, describing the head noun embedded in the relative clause, but grammatically, the relative clause INCLUDES the head noun as subject or object of its verb and its position relative to the head noun has nothing to do with the grammatical position of adjectival verbs.

Once you have wrapped your mind around this, consider the bit of grammar this group added to disambiguate relative clauses with both a subject and an object to point out the head noun, then Okrand validated the idea. Consider the following:

potlhqu' Qu'wIj toy'bogh jupwI'.

Is my mission important, or is my friend important? Either could be true. If you want to make it clear, add the suffix {-'e'} to the head noun.

pothqu' Qu'wIj'e' toy'bogh jupwI'.

My mission, which my friend serves, is very important.

potlhqu' Qu'wIj toy'bogh jupwI''e'.

My friend, who serves my mission, is very important.

Does this help?

Sent from my iPad
lojmIt tI'wI' nuv

On Apr 16, 2016, at 11:35 PM, Dillon, Kyle <kyledi at spu.edu<mailto:kyledi at spu.edu>> wrote:

These comments are very helpful. Thank you. I'm still struggling with the syntax of subordinate clauses, and relative clauses in particular. Since they function adjectivally, I figured that they would come after the nouns they modify in Klingon. I will just need more exposure to example sentences with these types of constructions.

You are right about "no other Gods before me." I couldn't find "before" in my lexicon, but I hadn't considered looking up "precede" and so I settled for a spatial rendering. But with two verbs ("precede" and "have"), I'm wondering if it would be better to somehow break them up into two sentences: munungbe' latlh Qunpu'. Datoy'Qo'. Would that be more natural in Klingon?

Yes, most commands in the Torah are second person singular in the original Hebrew. The nation Israel is generally treated as a collective singular in the law codes, including the Ten Commandments. I was (briefly) working on a PhD in Biblical Hebrew a couple years ago, actually.

-qayl

Sent from my iPad

On Apr 16, 2016, at 8:55 PM, Robyn Stewart <robyn at flyingstart.ca<mailto:robyn at flyingstart.ca>> wrote:

Two flights later, refulled and put away the plane, ate dinner, and no one else has picked this up? Apologies to 'arHa if you're getting to this.  I'm sure you will have more to say that I missed on the meanings.

General comment: starts out a bit too slavishly translating the word-for-word of the original, rather than the meaning, like a computer encoding, but you get into the swing of things as you go along.

Some things work in English but not in Klingon.  Were I not familiar with the original, I would have no idea what that qaqemta'bogh was supposed to be attached to.  Break up long English sentences into shorter Klingon ones.

I'm not a biblical scholar, but doesn't "no other Gods before me" mean "in priority over me" or "preceding me" and not "in the area in front of me," as you have written?  Klingon does not use the same vocabulary for place and time.

The word tuq designates house as in "line, family".  For house of slavery you probably want bIghHa' or qach.

Is it really second person singular throughout in the original?  Some of these seem really weird in the singular.  Maybe check the King James to see if they are thou or you. Or better the source language if you know it.  There will be a few people here who do, perhaps one will correct me.

nagh mIllogh seems like you were trying to say nagh beQ and forgot the full term.  The definition of graven I found is  1. deeply impressed; firmly fixed.
3. carved; sculptured. Not necessarily stone. Consider also the vocabulary Hew, nan, ru'Ha'.  Note spelling of ghItlh.

pong yIrammoHQo' - very nice : here you translated the meaning, not the words.

Klingons have a six day week.  They mapped their week names to ours starting with Monday. When they encounter a culture that has more days in a week than theirs they add numbered days starting with jaj wa'.  Sunday is jaj wa' in Klingon.

A phrase using -meH must always precede the verb it modifies.

There's no N in tlhIngan Hol.

Remember OVS and rewrite this sentence with the subject of each verb in the correct position: mu'mey ngeb tIjatlhQo' jIllI' lubopbogh. I realize now that's what you were trying to do with qaqemta'bogh, too.  That should help you fix it.

-----Original Message-----
From: qov at kli.org<mailto:qov at kli.org> [mailto:qov at kli.org]
Sent: April 16, 2016 7:56
To: tlhIngan Hol mailing list
Subject: Re: [Tlhingan-hol] Ten Commandments in Klingon

The Klingon for Egypt is maSIr. If you don't know the Klingon equivalent for a
proper noun, the recommended practice is to write is as you would in the
source language and surround it with asterisks, e.g. *Mali* DoQ mangghom.

And my flight has just been called, so I haven't read past that.

- Qov

Please correct me if you see any errors below, or if there may be a better
way to translate them:

joH'a' QunlI' jIH 'ejIpt puHvo' toy'wI''a'pu' tuqvo'je qaqemta'bogh.
tlhopwIjDaq latlh Qunpu' tIghajQo'.
I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the
house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. (Exodus 20:2-3)

SoHvaD nagh mIlloghmey tIgItlhQo'.
You shall not make for yourself graven images. (Exodus 20:4)

joH'a' QunlI' pong yIrammoHQo'.
You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. (Exodus 20:7)

jaj SochDIch yIqaw Dale'qu'moHmeH.
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. (Exodus 20:8)

vavlI' SoSlI'je tIquvmoH.
Honor your father and your mother. (Exodus 20:12)

yIchotQo'.
You shall not murder. (Exodus 20:13)

tlhoghlIj yImaghQo'.
You shall not commit adultery. (Exodus 20:14)

yINIHQo'.
You shall not steal. (Exodus 20:15)

mu'mey ngeb tIjatlhQo' jIllI' lubopbogh.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. (Exodus 20:16)

yIghalQo'.
You shall not covet. (Exodus 20:17)

-qayl
Sent from my iPad

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