[tlhIngan Hol] mu' chu' chabal tetlh!

[nIqolay Q]

On Tue, Mar 21, 2017 at 3:54 AM, Lieven <levinius at gmx.de> wrote:
> Actually more for my personal practice, I'm going to try to tanslate some
> phrases, but also to show that missing words are not always a hinder to
> translate.
>
> Am 21.03.2017 um 04:29 schrieb nIqolay Q:
>>
>> More words relating to weather, weather forecasting, and weather hazards:
>> - Forecast (n/v), thunder (n/v), hail (n/v), cyclone/hurricane (n),
>> tornado (n), blizzard (n or v), shelter (n/v), flood (n/v), tide (n),
>> drown (v)
>
>
> Watch your sources:
> {SoD} "flood" n/v. (TKD)

HIvqa' veqlargh!

I'm not sure some of the other translations you propose work, though.
We seem to have different connotations for words, based on differing
interpretations of their glosses. Having specific guidance one way or
another would be useful here.

> {wa'leS chaq SIS; X vatlhvI' DuH.}

{DuH} seems to mean "possibility" in the sense of "one option among
many". I'm not sure I'd use it personally in the sense of statistical
probability.

> That's interesting. I always say thinhs like {qaStaHvIS wa' rep vagh
> qeli'qam leng SuS} - but that'S a bit awkward maybe.

I'd thought of a similar construction, but it is awkward.

> We have {'uj}, which is about 34.8 cm (about 13" 3/4), but what an 'ujHom is
> remains a guess.

Likewise, working with fractional {'ujmey} is awkward.

> Hm. Most of us have gotten used to abuse the word {poH} for that.

I've thought about that, but it doesn't feel right to me. If it's
accepted practice I suppose I can bite the bullet.

> What about {wanI'}?

{wanI'} doesn't necessarily have the connotation I'm looking for,
which is something along the lines of "a very brief duration of time
that is perhaps conceptually perceived as having no duration". An
event or occurence can last longer than a single moment.

> A klingon may say "where's the difference?"  :-D
>
> Terrans also use their own words to describe things they see other cultures
> do, when they have no own word for it.

Terrans also have ways of making distinctions when necessary, though.
Klingons probably would include Terran kissing under {chop} if they
didn't care about making a distinction. But is there a phrase they
tend to use that has the specific connotation of the toothless way
that Terrans {chop}?

> This may be related to that fact that Klingons do not talk a lot about
> physiology. At the first stepp, I would guess that all the bones are just
> named using the body part plus the word for bone: {nach Hom} "head bone" =
> skull.

Not always. Ribs are {joQDu'}, not {ro HomDu'}. Spines are {pIpDu'},
not {Dub HomDu'}. Also, I'm not sure I buy the argument that Klingons
don't talk a lot about physiology. Maybe not in the medical sense, but
one would think a warrior culture would be able to describe the body
parts they're smashing, hacking, and/or removing. The skull in
particular is a pretty distinctive bone, both visually and
functionally, which has powerful symbolic connotations in many
cultures. It seems unusual that they wouldn't have specifically
vocabulary for it. (Also, {X Hom} bone constructions sound a little
awkward to me because of the potential homophony with the suffix
{-Hom}.)