[tlhIngan Hol] verbs with {-bogh} and numbers

[nIqolay Q]

On Thu, Oct 19, 2017 at 8:56 PM, SuStel <sustel at trimboli.name> wrote:

> It's perfectly fine if you have a preference. It's just that your
> preference doesn't seem to be borne out in at least one example, and might
> be unlikely given the English bias of the creator of canon.
>
I'm not trying to suggest that my preference is shared by all Klingons or
all Klingonists. It's entirely possible that if Maltz heard about this
discussion he'd think I'm a pedantic weirdo. (*ghaytan mujbe' net jal.*)

> I don't think "removes some ambiguity" is sufficient cause to go against
> the grain. But if you wrote* quvHa'moHbogh 'ej QeHmoHbogh verengan qID*
> instead of *verengan quvHa'moHbogh 'ej QeHmoHbogh qID,* I wouldn't bat an
> eyelash.
>
"Romulan hunter-killer probe" might have been a bad example to argue about,
really, since it already exists in canon as a set phrase. (I just think the
set phrase could be better!) But if I were writing something about Ferengi
jokes, I'd use *quvHa'moHbogh 'ej QeHmoHbogh verengan qID* instead of the
alternative unless I had some compelling reason not to.

> Exhibit A: the prefix trick.
>
Features getting retconned out of errors because Okrand slipped into
"English brain" during a translation is not quite the sort of thing I was
thinking of. My feelings are more like this: Because the original English
lines are often written by people who don't know what features Klingon has,
the translations don't always take full advantage of those features, or
they have some awkward phrasing in order to match the English. Okrand
usually seems to stay as close to the original phrase as possible, and
doesn't seem inclined to add meanings beyond what's originally written in
the English. So, for instance, would more canonical Klingon lines from TV
and movies use *-bej* or *-ba'* if the episode writers had known that the
concepts of "certainly" and "obviously" were just single-syllable suffixes
in Klingon and wrote the English accordingly?

One example I think of a lot is this bit from the paq'batlh:* nItebHa'
molor HI''a' SuvvIpghach puj je HarghmeH yeq chaH* *United to do battle
together! Against the tyrant Molor! Against fear and against weakness!**
SuvvIpghach* works fine in this context to mean "fear". But would the
English line have contained the noun "fear" at all if the writer knew that
Klingons usually talk about fear using verbs (either with *ghIj* "scare" or
the suffix *-vIp*)?

In other words, when Okrand is translating someone else's English work (TV
and movie lines, the Warrior's Anthem, the paq'batlh, Shakespeare, etc.),
the English phrasing style sometimes shows through. How would Klingon
"look" if it was more often written starting from the Klingon? What words
would get used more often, which suffixes would be more common, what
sentence structures would we see more frequently? That sort of thing.
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