[tlhIngan Hol] dishonorable vs dishonored

Steven Boozer sboozer at uchicago.edu
Wed Oct 30 08:10:43 PDT 2019


quv  		honor (n)

quv lughaj Archer HoD beqDaj je. 
Captain Archer and his crew are honorable people. (ENT "The Augments")

which may imply ?{quvHa'ghach ghaj SuvwI'} "a dishonorable warrior".  

quv  		be honored,  be honorable 

SoHvaD quvwI’ qem Hegh 'e' wIvDI’ Hegh pop Hevchugh quvwI’ 
The honorable will be rewarded After death chooses to bring them to you PB

Which suggests you could refer to the warrior as the {quvHa'wI'} " dishonorable one".

GARAK:  It's the honorable thing to do.
WORF:   You use that word, but you have no idea what it means.
GARAK:  Perhaps not, but you do.   [DS9 "In Purgatory's Shadow"]

As Worf suggests, Klingon and Cardassian ideas of honor and dishonor are different.  (Or maybe Worf was insulting Garak specifically; he was a disgraced spy forced to live in exile among his enemies after all.)  

(HQ 12.3:9):  All this talk of pseudo-honor and non-honor logically led to a discussion of honor itself, normally expressed by the nouns {quv} and {batlh}, both usually defined as simply "honor".  When asked to distinguish between the two, Maltz said, {tlhIngan Soj 'oH-–not bIyaj}, literally, "It is Klingon food-—you will not understand," using {Soj} "food" in its idiomatic sense of "matter, concern, affair".

Nevertheless, here are some examples of how to talk about dishonor:

quvHa'  	be dishonored (v)

quvHa'; ghe'tor ngan rur 
dishonored as an inhabitant of Gre'thor  (KGT)

De' nIb DachenmoHchugh bIquvHa' 
To duplicate data is a great dishonor. (DCTF2)

qaStaHvIS wej puq poHmey vav puqloDpu' puqloDpu'chaj je quvHa'moH vav quvHa'ghach 
The dishonor of the father dishonors his sons and their sons for three generations.  (TKW)

HoQ  		be honored falsely,  be falsely honorable (v)

(HQ 12.3:8-9):  Maltz … said [{HoQ}] could be used in the same places {quv} "be honored, be honorable" could be used, but only then the honor was not legitimate. Thus, a delegate to the Klingon Empire could well be described as a {Duy quv} "honored emissary", but if it turned out that he or she was a spy, the phrase {Duy HoQ} "falsely honored emissary" would be appropriate.

Qaq 		behave falsely honorably, behave in a falsely honorable manner (v)

(HQ 12.3:8-9):  {Qaq} "behave falsely honorably, behave in a falsely honorable manner" … is used in cases where one misrepresents oneself in order to be accorded honor one is not entitled to, and in that way it is different from {toj} "deceive" and {ghet} "pretend", neither of which has this kind of connection to honor […]

mIl 		be formerly honored (v)

(HQ 12.3:8-9):  [{mIl}] would be applied to a leader who left office in disgrace, for example, or an ousted ship's captain. It would not be used of a {'utlh}, an officer who has stepped down or retired voluntarily and who is still respected. 

yIntaHwI'pu' vImIlHa'moH jIH, Heghpu'wI'pu' DamIlHa'moH SoH
I will restore honor among the living, you will restore honor among the dead. (PB)

And don't forget there are other qualities available depending on why the warrior is dishonorable.  E.g.

web 		be disgraced (v)
qal 		be corrupt (v)
yuD  		be dishonest (v)

--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons


----------------------------------------Original Message----------------------------------------
From: mayqel qunen'oS

I want to say "a dishonorable warrior", but unfortunately we only have {quvHa'}, which is given as "be dishonored".

So, my problem is (again) the fact that english isn't my native language..

The way I understand "dishonorable" is that someone "is dishonorable".

And the way I understand "dishonored", is that "someone has been dishonored by someone or something".

Back to the original question, if I want to describe a warrior who is dishonorable, but "hasn't been dishonored by a specific event or person", then how do I say it ?

Is the english "dishonored warrior", significantly different from "dishonorable warrior" ?

I thought of writing {quvbe'bogh SuvwI'}, however can't  this be understood as "a warrior who isn't honorable on one hand, but isn't dishonorable on the other" ? Can't this mean just "a warrior who's somewhere in between" ?

Anyways, cutting to the chase, (as americans say), how would you say "dishonorable warrior" ? Would you settle for a mere {SuvwI' quvHa'}, and pray to kahless that the reader gets it ?



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