[Tlhingan-hol] ghIQlI'

[lojmIt tI'wI' nuv 'utlh]

Your use of the word {ngIq} is unusual, and I’m not sure it works. My limited understanding of it is that it modifies a noun so that when applied to a plural noun, it means “one at a time”, and when applied to a singular noun, it emphasizes the singularity of the noun.

That said, I don’t know what Klingon word we could use for “episode”. I’m not sure that Klingons understand the concept. They have operas, but so far as I can tell, we don’t have a word for the sub-unit of the opera humans would call an “act”, except to designate the first act or the last act, which may not imply the concept of “act” as much as it just conveys the concepts of “beginning” and “end". Would they see Star Trek as a series of stories, or would they see them as a series of events within one long story (which is what you probably intend by the word “episode”).

Basically, we have no evidence that Klingons have televisions. We similarly have no evidence of entertainment media aside from live performance. There’s no evidence that live performances would include the concept of a weekly episode. Without these concepts, there’s no reason to expect a word for a concept that they might not have.

I suspect that they’d see it as a series of stories, in which case {Hov leng lutmey} would be preferable to {Hol leng ngIq muchmey}.

More below.

lojmIt tI’wI’ nuv ‘utlh
Door Repair Guy, Retired Honorably



> On Jan 26, 2016, at 4:02 AM, mayql qunenoS <mihkoun at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> ghItlhpu' lojmIt tI'wI' nuv :
> 
>> Likely you have been somewhat impatient, and thus you have moments
>> of carelessness. But you are not stupid. I can assure you that few stupid
>> people acquire any skill at speaking Klingon.
>> You are skilled with the language.
> 
> muQuchmoH mu'meylIj.
> your words make me happy.
> 
> taH :
> ...
> 
> jIHvaD muqawmoH ghu'vam, Hov leng ngIq muchmey law' ;
> this situation reminds me, several star trek episodes ;

Your English and Klingon both have a grammatical break at the same point. As a person pointing that out, it’s ironic that the correction I’m compelled to make involves a bit of Klingon grammar that I despise. So, the way you were probably supposed to say this would be:

{jIHvaD Hov leng lutmey vIqawmoH ghu'vam,} or if you choose to use the “prefix trick”, {Hov leng lutmey muqawmoH ghu'vam.} The prefix trick works only because it indicates a second-person direct object, which obviously disagrees with the third person explicit direct object. That disagreement triggers the reader to sort out the direct and indirect objects.

Yes, it literally sounds like gibberish. “For me, it caused Star Trek stories to remember,” (which is why I despise it), but that’s what pretty much everybody agrees is the proper Klingon grammar. The consensus is that this, defying everything explained in TKD, actually means “It caused me to remember Star Trek stories.” More recent canon proves this to be good and proper.

If you choose to hate this as much as I do, then you could optionally recast this to something better suited to your personal style. In my case, I’d probably come up with one of the following:

muqawmoHmo’ ghu'vam, Hov leng lutmey vIqel.

muqawmoH ghu'vam. Hov leng lutmey vIqaw.

Again, I stress that the disgusting version of this initially suggested here is the generally accepted and preferred way to say this. While accepting that, it would be a challenge to prove that these alternatives were grammatically incorrect or even inappropriate. It’s all a matter of personal style. Be as disgusting or as rebellious as you like. Either should be acceptable to the group.

> qaStaHvIS ngIq muchmey, jaS Qubmo' neH chaH,latlh novpu' QeHmoH novpu''e'.
> at these episodes, aliens anger other aliens, only because they think
> differently.

I found this challenging to parse because of the multiplicity of uses of {neH} in Klingon (as a verb “to want” with its exceptional placement in Sentence as Object constructions or as an adverbial “merely” affecting a verb or “only” when applied to a noun), and {chaH} as a pronoun or as the verb “to be”. That doesn’t mean that it’s wrong, or that I can come up with anything better.

Since I tend to overthink things, I’m tempted to point out that people don’t make others angry because they think differently. It’s less direct than that. Thinking differently causes one to act or speak differently. Those actions or words are then misinterpreted by others because they think differently.

People (aliens or otherwise) can think as differently as they like, and so long as nobody is telepathic, there’s no anger necessary, until those different thoughts trigger different words or actions that then trigger anger because of misinterpretation.

A human walks up to a Klingon for no apparent reason and says, “Hello,” and then just stands there, smiling and waiting for some kind of reply.

The Klingon wonders, "What is the human up to? What does he want?" The Klingon looks around to see if maybe the human is distracting him from someone else stealing something or maybe sneaking up behind the Klingon to kill him. "No, nothing looks out of the ordinary except that this human is still standing there, smiling in his deceitful, disarming way, making eye contact, awaiting some kind of response when there is nothing for me to respond to, except for maybe this challenging eye contact. Maybe he wants to start a fight?"

"There are more direct ways to start a fight. Why doesn’t the human just hit me and get it over with? Maybe he thinks himself so superior to me that he wants to give me the opportunity to hit him first? That he is so sure he can take anything I can dish out, so uninjured that he can then feel justified in delivering a death blow in response?"

"Still, he says nothing! I want to KILL this human where he stands!"

Yes, the human and the Klingon are thinking differently, but it’s not their thoughts that make the Klingon angry. It’s the action and word of the human. The human approaches the Klingon without explanation. The human says, “Hello.” The human stands there, smiling, waiting for a response. These are all actions, not thoughts.

When the Klingon then grabs the human by the forearms and head-butts him senseless and then stands there with his hand on whatever weapon seems most handy, grimacing threateningly and growling, these actions make the human very angry, once he comes to his senses. Again, the Klingon’s thoughts didn’t make the human angry. It was his actions.

Introduce telepaths and it changes EVERYTHING. But Klingons are not telepaths. They don’t even LIKE telepaths. You can’t keep a secret from a telepath. Just thinking that a telepath is near would make a Klingon angry.

> naDev, novpu' maH Hoch maH'e'.
> here we all are aliens.

It’s enough to say {naDev nuvpu’ maH Hoch.} I don’t think you can use a pronoun as pronoun that same restated pronoun as the verb “to be”. I’ve never seen it done, and I’m not sure it’s good to start now.

> Sep pImvo' maHmo', maH'egh novpu'.
> because we are from different countries we are aliens to each other.

That’s the first time in my life that I’ve seen {maH’egh}. I need to think about that. “We are ourselves”. Not “We are, ourselves.” "We ARE ourselves.” Like being is something that we are actively doing to ourselves. It makes my head hurt. {maHchuq}? Better, but still painful.

I would have said {Sep pImvo’ maHmo’, maqelchuqDI’, manovbej.} Klingons will favor verbs over nouns in a situation like this, because in concept, it is less that we are aliens than it is that we are alien. It’s the being alien that is significant, not that we are entities who are identifiable as aliens. It’s a subtle difference.

If we want to point to some people over there who are incidentally identifiable as aliens, and we want to talk about them as entities that are doing something and use “alien” as a label to help identify who we are talking about, we’ll use {novpu’}. But when we are specifically noting the alien nature of someone as the feature of them that is solely our point of interest, we’d probably prefer the verb to describe them.

> 'elaDya'ngan jIH, naDev tlhIngan jatlhwI'pu' law' 'amerI'qa'
> SepjIjQa'ngan chaH, Qov qa'naDa'ngan ghaH, Quvar valer DoyIchlangan
> ghaH..
> I'm greek, many klingonists here are american, Qov is canadian, lieven
> is german..

You say, “Many Klingonists here are American”, but the Klingon says {naDev tlhIngan jatlhwI’pu’ law’ ‘amerI’qa’ SepjIjQa’ngan chaH.} Consider {naDev ‘amerI’qa’ SepjIjQa’ngan chaH tlhIngan Hol jatlhwI’pu’ law'’e’.} Or, consider {naDev tlhIngan Hol jatlhbogh ‘amerIIqa’ SepjIjQa’nganpu’ law'’e' tu’lu’.}

> meqmo', vay' mawlaH vay' 'e' DuH 'oH ; vabDot ghaH maw, neHbe'chugh ghaH.
> for this reason it is possible that someone may offend someone, even
> if he doesn't want to offend him.

{DuH} doesn’t take an object. You have it taking {‘e’} as the direct object, referring to the previous sentence for a Sentence As Object construction. So, what does {‘oH} refer to? Likely it refers to the sentence that {‘e’} represents. You are attempting a “Sentence As Subject” construction, but Klingon doesn’t have one. I understand the temptation. I know why you want to do this, but it’s simply ungrammatical. Klingon has no such construction.

So, instead of trying to use a particular tool to express an idea, back up and feel around for the best tool to express the idea. Take the simplest path:

bong vay’ mawmoHlaH meqvam.

You don’t have to say that someone offends someone. You can just say that someone offends. That already implies that someone is being offended.

> 'ach qay'be' tu'lu', naDev juppu' maH Hoch'e' 'e' wISovmo'.
> however there is no problem, because we all know, that here we are all friends.

I don’t think that {tu’lu’} has a reason to be here. It doesn’t grammatically fit and doesn’t add any meaning.

I think it would also be much easier to understand if you rearranged it thusly:

naDev juppu’ maH Hoch ‘e’ wISovmo’, qay’be’.

While it’s okay to put a {-mo’} clause before or after the main verb, when you add the complication of the Sentence As Object construction, it is definitely better to put it before the main verb. Why?

The controversy is over whether Sentence As Object results in one or two sentences. TKD suggests that it’s still two sentences in Klingon. The first of two sentences refers back to the previous sentence.

But in this case, the second sentence isn’t really a sentence. It’s a dependent clause. It may be okay for a dependent clause to refer back to a previous sentence, but in order for that previous sentence to precede the dependent clause, if the clause comes at the end of the main clause it depends on, that main clause has to encapsulate the “previous sentence”.

Maybe this is okay. Those who think that the sentence pair making up the Sentence As Object construction actually becomes a single grammatical sentence in Klingon (contrary to the suggestion stated in TKD) can argue that this is all fine.

Meanwhile, it’s very simple to be less controversial. Just put the dependent clause before the main clause and the “previous sentence” can now simply be a “previous sentence” and everything works.

I apologize for being so picky about things. Your skill level is quite good. It is far better to say many things, including mistakes that can be learned from than it is to remain quiet and wait for someone else to say something, hoping that over time you’ll learn enough to speak flawlessly. That is the kind of fantasy that makes for students who rarely learn much.