[tlhIngan Hol] A joq or a ghap missing.

Steven Boozer sboozer at uchicago.edu
Fri Aug 4 12:36:12 PDT 2017


You're right, something's missing.  It's probably just a printing error by the SkyBox people (who printed the card). 

Are conjunctions optional in formal Klingon?  Probably not.  It's best not to over-react to a single example.  As Marc Okrand wrote in the introduction to _The Klingon Dictionary_:

   It should be remembered that even though the rules say "always" and
   "never," when Klingon is actually spoken these rules are sometimes
   broken. What the rules represent, in other words, is what Klingon
   grammarians agree on as the "best" Klingon."

However... If you change the punctuation - but not the words - it does become colloquial (at least in English):

  qagh, ro'qegh'Iwchab, targh tIq.           Sop 'e' lungIl Humanpu' puS.
  Gagh, rokeg blood pie, heart of targ.   Few humans dare to eat them.

or:

  qagh, ro'qegh'Iwchab, targh tIq ...   Sop 'e' lungIl Humanpu' puS  
  Few humans dare to eat gagh, rokeg blood pie, heart of targ ...

where <...> represents a pause, as if the speaker is thinking of another example but gave up after only three.

--Voragh


-----Original Message-----
On Behalf Of mayqel qunenoS

Recently, our honorable Ca'non Master shared with us the sentence:

  qagh, ro'qegh'Iwchab, targh tIq Sop 'e' lungIl Humanpu' puS  
  Few humans dare to eat gagh, rokeg blood pie, or heart of targ. (S21)

Shouldn't there be a {joq} or a {ghap} after the {tIq} ? Or is it that conjunctions after a string of nouns are optional, and there is grammar here I am missing ?

qunnoq
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