[tlhIngan Hol] “We share with each other” / machqu'bej qo'maj
Daniel Dadap
daniel at dadap.net
Fri Jun 8 17:43:25 PDT 2018
(Sorry for spamming the list so much lately, I’ve been having a fit of inspiration.)
What’s the correct way to say “we share a thing with each other”? The direct object of {bon} is supposed to be the thing being shared, so neither {Doch mabon'egh} nor {Doch mabonchuq} seem right (and changing the prefix to {wI-} just seems to make things worse). {maHvaD Doch wIbon} seems awkward, but I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be that.
The actual thing I want to express is “we share the world with each other”, and within this context, I think {HochvaD qo' wIbon} works fine and avoids the awkwardness I perceived with {maHvaD X wI-Y}. It just made me curious as to how this would be expressed more generally.
Anyway, I was reconstructing the original Klingon lyrics of another song when this question came up; as usual, all suggestions for improvement are welcome, though I’ll only bother trying to fix grave grammatical or lexical errors since I want to keep the rhyme and meter of the song:
qo'vamDaq rut maHagh 'ej rut maSaQ,
'ej rut vay' wItul qoj wIghIjlu'taH.
HochvaD qo' wIbontaH, 'ej wISovnISbej maH:
mach qo'vam, qo'Hom, qo'maj!
machqu'bej qo'vam, qar'a'?
machqu'bej qo'Hom, qar'a'?
machqu'bej qo'maj, qar'a'?
HIja', machqu'bej!
wa'[1] maS neH, wa' jul SuD je ghaj qo'maj,
'ej monbogh ghot Daleghchugh, jup Daghaj.
Hatlh wavtaHbej HuD'a'mey, 'ej tInqu' bIQ'a'mey,
'ach machqu'bej qo'maj!
machqu'bej qo'vam, qar'a'?
machqu'bej qo'Hom, qar'a'?
machqu'bej qo'maj, qar'a'?
HIja', machqu'bej!
(It’s a small world, in case it’s not obvious.)
[1] The Memory Alpha Page on Qo'noS says pIraqSIS is its only moon; not sure what the source for that is, but if accurate, and tera' bopbe'chugh bomvam, 'ej Qo'noS bopchugh 'oH, then presumably this song was written before the events of Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country.
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