[tlhIngan Hol] Multiple question words / markers in a sentence

[Will Martin]

Before Okrand revealed the prefix trick to us, {‘etlhlIj HInob} would have, indeed, been ungrammatical Klingon, encoded English. It would have not made sense in the Klingon language. 

But Okrand DID reveal the prefix trick to us, and because of that {‘etlhlIj HInob} is perfectly grammatical in Klingon.

If he ever reveals to us how indirect quotation works in Klingon, the same will be true of your double-question, assuming that your version of how the grammar works matches whatever he comes up with. Before we knew how to use direct quotations, we had no grammar for it, and likely had we guessed, we would not have come up with what Okrand revealed to us, so earlier guesses would almost certainly be wrong. And yes, we spent years working with the language before we had any hint as to the grammar of how to make direct quotations.

We’re working in a language where we don’t get to make up our own grammar. We don’t get to conclude what undefined grammar would look like were we to go where Okrand hasn’t gone yet.

You have an interesting story worth telling. People understood what was intended, but that doesn’t make it grammatical. I responded to the question as to whether or not it was grammatical. I said it wasn’t, and all the argument that has followed comes back to that point. I still don’t think it’s grammatical, and I doubt that I stand alone with this opinion.

It doesn’t go any farther than that. It’s like there’s an effort to come back with a last word to say that, “Yeah, I know it’s not quite grammatical, but it’s still okay, and almost grammatical in a special situation, right?”

If your concern is whether or not it is grammatical, then I’m unmoved in believing that it is not. If you have some other point to make besides whether or not it is grammatical, then we’d go back and forth less if you didn’t include any suggesting that it sort of kind of is almost grammatical, right?

charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan

rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.




> On Feb 18, 2019, at 10:04 AM, Daniel Dadap <daniel at dadap.net> wrote:
> 
>> You have encoded an indirect quote from English into a Klingon sentence. It’s not a translation. It’s encoding. Any English speaker might be able to figure out what you are saying, but would a Klingon understand it? I doubt it.
> 
> 
> Just because something looks like encoded English doesn’t mean that it is. The prefix trick resembles indirect objects in English, and if one were to rely only on the grammar in TKD, one might balk at a sentence like “'etlhlIj HInob” and say that’s obviously just encoded English, and the right way to say it is “jIHvaD 'etlhlIj yInob.”  (It’s entirely possible that the prefix trick originated as accidentally encoded English, but that’s beside the point.) Nobody was translating anything in the conversation where “SaH'a' 'Iv” emerged; it was a conversation occurring in Klingon between Klingon speakers. It’s possible that the thought process that led to “SaH'a' 'Iv” might have been influenced by English, but it needn’t have been.

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