[tlhIngan Hol] Three questions about the *paq'batlh*

[Will Martin]

I’d just like to speak up for the commonness of ambiguity in language, be it English, Klingon, or whatever. “Lines of three” is itself, in English, ambiguous. The common interpretation might be an unmentioned number of lines, each consisting of three participants, but it can very well mean three lines of an unmentioned number of participants, particularly in the context of ancient, formal, written speech, which is pretty much what we’re dealing with here in the Klingon canon, so the English translations might tend to lean toward the stilted, formal, grandiose, barely modern English.

“And the army formed lines of three to receive uniforms: A line of The Tall. A line of The Medium. A line of The Short.”

We tend to question whether these borderline poetry, revealed ancient Klingon writings mean exactly what the English means, and we tend to forget that we might not accurately understand what the English means.

I genuinely wish we had more Klingon canon representing common, modern speech instead of a lot of things that can get away with “poetry doesn’t always follow the rules” or “ancient dialect” or other dodges from the responsibility of writing well-formed Klingon sentences as guidance for communicating in the language. But, hey.

First World Problems.

We have to speak Klingon based on ancient canon… like a neanderthal. [brush, brush, brush… sigh… support elbow with other hand… brush, brush, brush]

pItlh

charghwI’ ‘utlh
(ghaH, ghaH, -Daj)




> On Aug 1, 2023, at 8:45 AM, De'vID via tlhIngan-Hol <tlhingan-hol at lists.kli.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Mon, Jul 31, 2023 at 5:18 PM SuStel via tlhIngan-Hol <tlhingan-hol at lists.kli.org <mailto:tlhingan-hol at lists.kli.org>> wrote:
>> On 7/28/2023 10:33 AM, luis.chaparro--- via tlhIngan-Hol wrote:
>> Let me illustrate the ambiguity. vaS'a'Daq vIjaH. This is actually ambiguous. Does it mean that vaS'a'Daq is the object, or does it mean vaS'a'Daq 'oH vIjaH, where the pronoun had been elided?
>> 
> I had a chat with Dr. Okrand about this some years ago. This isn't actually ambiguous, because when the prefix can indicate an object, and there's a noun marked with {-Daq}, then (usually, generally, etc. - the usual qualifications) it is the object unless there's another noun or a pronoun. This is actually implied by the examples in TKD but not explained clearly. 
> 
> {DujDaq ghoStaH} "It is approaching toward the ship."
> {pa'Daq yIjaH} "Go to the room!"
> 
> These cannot mean "It is approaching something on the ship" and "Go to it in the room!" If you wanted to say those sentences, you'd have to explicitly add an {'oH} or something. 
> 
>>> 3.
>>> 
>>> ghe’tor lojmIt
>>> lughoS Heghpu’bogh nuvpu’ qa’pu’
>>> chen wej tlheghmey
>>> 
>>> (paq'raD 1, 25-27)
>>> 
>>> Does *wej tlheghmey* mean *lines of three* (like the English text says), *three lines* or both (so that the phrase is ambiguous)?
>> It means three lines. I'm guessing this is another sloppy translation. UNLESS the English is referring to lines three across and the Klingon is referring to three columns, which would amount to the same thing.
>> 
> Yes, that was the idea. The English and Klingon are different ways of describing the same thing. There are a number of places where the English and Klingon describe the same thing differently, because translating things more literally would've violated metrical or space or alignment constraints or something. We considered switching {tlhegh} for {lanSoy} here, but didn't because it wasn't necessary as it would've still had the same meaning.
> 
> -- 
> De'vID
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