April 2020 - tlhIngan-Hol

New words from Hamletmachine
by Lieven L. Litaer 28 Dec '23

28 Dec '23

For the creation of the play {mu' mu' mu'} by the Dutch theatre company URLAND that premiered on 4th of March 2020, I was asked to translate a German play into Klingon, which was partially used in their play. The play "Die Hamletmaschine" by German author Heiner Müller was written in 1977, is internationally known and has been translated into several languages. During translation work, I got help from Marc Okrand who could discuss some useful information with Maltz. Due to some copyright situations, I cannot publish the translation right now, but I do not want to keep those words hidden until publication until then, so here we go. For a clearer and more "colorful" overview, see the page at the Klingon Language wiki: http://klingon.wiki/En/Hamletmachine Body parts: == Okrand quote == {nev'ob} refers to both the "thigh" and the "upper arm" (above the elbow). Similarly, {reStav} refers to both the "shin" and the "forearm." If it's necessary to make a distinction, precede these words with {'uS} or {DeS}. {cha'neH}, when used alone, means "forearm." But when preceded by {'uS}, it means "lower part of the leg." You could also say {DeS cha'neH} for "forearm," but this would probably be used only in a context where you were talking about both the forearm and the lower leg and wanted to clarify which was which. {reStav} is "shin," meaning the front of the lower leg. (I assume "Schienbein" is "shin bone." {reStav} is more than just the bone. The only way Maltz was aware of for referring to the bone is {reStav Hom}.) {Do'ghI'} is "calf," meaning the back of the lower leg ("Wade," presumably). == Okrand quote end == Clarifying "hang": == Okrand quote == {HuS} takes an object. If your shoes are hanging on a wall it's because somebody hung them there. {HuS} is not used to mean "lynch" or "execute by hanging." That's a different word: {jIb}. (Maltz thought maybe an early form of torture or execution was hanging people by their hair, but he wasn't totally sure about this and may have just been reacting to the homophony.) And there's another word: {tlhep} "be suspended, be dangling." Use {HuS} if, for example, you hang your coat on a hook on the wall or hang sheets on a clothesline to dry. But if, say, you see a spider dangling at the bottom of one of those silk threads that spiders extrude, use {tlhep}. Or if you see a pair of shoes tied together by the laces and, for whatever reason, they're hanging by the tied-together laces from an overhead power wire, use {tlhep}. == Okrand quote end == Okrand agreed that {jIb'egh} is "suicide by hanging". Next, there was a question about a "concubine": == Okrand quote == Maltz thought the best word for this might be {lIwnal}, though maybe not: the cultural connotations are a bit different since, in Klingon culture, everything associated with a {lIwnal} lacks honor, and this is not necessarily the case for a (Terran) king's concubines or courtesans. Note that only married people could have a partner who could be considered a {lIwnal}. Also, {lIwnal} could be male or female, so if it's necessary to distinguish, say {loD lIwnal} or {be' lIwnal}. == Okrand quote end == More words: {ghenlan} - Greenland (country) {qaw'} - flip over {qaw'moH} - flip over (i.e. "make something flip over") {rIv} - split {vIrgh} - rip (up), slash, tear (up), gash {'o'nI'} - foam, froth Not new words, but combined translations: {DeSwar bIr} - refrigerator {jorchan velqa'} - stage decoration {much jech} - costume {much yaH} - stage {qab jech} - mask Transliterations: {qo'qa' qo'la'} - Coca Cola {lIyenIn} - Lenin {maw} - Mao The question for a "stage" was answered with a general statement: == Okrand quote == Any place specifically designated for the performance of a specific task (or tasks) is a {yaH}. A stage is the {yaH} for the performance of plays or, perhaps, music. A football field is the {yaH} for a football game. A laboratory is a scientist's {yaH}. And, of course, on a ship, a {yaH} is a duty station. If context isn't enough to clarify what sort of {yaH} it is, you can say things like {much yaH}, {QoQ yaH}, {tamlerQeD yaH}, etc. == Okrand quote end == There's an idiom for "kill time": {'ebmey jonHa'} Talking about a "virgin", Okrand suggested saying it literally what a virgin is: {pagh ngaghpu'bogh be'} or {not vay' ngaghpu'bogh be'} Doing so, he answered the question if {ngagh} can be used with people. And in case anyone wondered, {jach} is a good verb to describe what a {jajlo' Qa'} does. -- Lieven L. Litaer aka the "Klingon Teacher from Germany" http://www.klingonisch.de http://klingon.wiki/En/Hamletmachine

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pseudo-Klingon words from the paq'batlh
by De'vID 27 May '22

27 May '22

What do people think about the following Klingon "words" from paq'batlh? They don't appear in the main (Klingon-language) text, but are used in otherwise English sentences in the introduction or footnotes. xxii. {Huy'reH} "aria style" xxii, 62, 87. {cha'ang} "chorus style" xvii, xxii, xxxv. {Qich'lut} "narrator style" xix. {paq'jachchu} "Book of the Perfect Scream" {Huy'reH} and {cha'ang}, at least, seem to follow proper modern {tlhIngan Hol} phonology. {Qich'lut} has a lower-cased "i" and an out-of-place {qaghwI'}. {paq'jachchu} has that apostrophe after {paq} and a missing {qaghwI'} at the end (if the {jachchu} part is indeed the verb {jachchu'}, as the English translation seems to indicate). On p.xxx, it is explicitly stated that the name {paq'batlh} is in {no' Hol} and that the apostrophe may be a clue to some missing grammatical element. Of course, the book also has sections named {paq'yav}, {paq'raD}, and {paq'QIH}. So {paq'jachchu} is probably just spelled weirdly for the same reason. Should {Huy'reH} and {cha'ang} be accepted as canon Klingon words as-is? In other words, would you expect them in a new words list? (In particular, I am asking if they should be listed in {boQwI'}.) The word {Qich'lut} is spelled that way all three times it appears in the book. I notice that in previous discussions on this mailing list, 'IQqu' and Voragh have both spelled it as {QIch lut} (capital-I, no apostrophe, space between the two words). Should {QIch lut} be accepted as the "modern" spelling for the purpose of look-up in word lists? -- De'vID

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paq'batlh errata?
by De'vID 27 Aug '20

27 Aug '20

Did anyone ever put together a list of errata for the {paq'batlh}? I'm about to send off my own list to the publisher. But if anyone else has compiled a list, please let me know in case I missed something. -- De'vID

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pluralizing groups of beings capable of language
by mayqel qunen'oS 17 Aug '20

17 Aug '20

Just to make certain.. The way I understand it is, that when we pluralize a group of beings capable of language, then we use {-mey}. For example, we'll say {qorDu'mey} for "families", and not {qorDu'pu'}. Right ? ~ mayqel qunen'oS

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Pronouns for irregular plurals
by Hugh Son puqloD 16 Aug '20

16 Aug '20

As I understand it, irregular plurals like {cha}, {ngop}, {negh}, and {no'} are treated as grammatically singular. But does that extend to pronouns? The following sentences don’t bother me that much: {ngop wISay'moH} {Dulegh'a' negh?} {no' luqaw} {cha yIghuS!} But these seem downright weird: {nuqDaq 'oH ngop'e'?} {'Iv ghaH no'ra''e'?} {cha 'oH'a'?} {negh ghaHlaw'.} Do we have canonical evidence of pronouns used to stand in for irregular plural nouns?

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Re: [tlhIngan Hol] If pIqaD became Ca'Non..
by Lieven L. Litaer 30 Apr '20

30 Apr '20

Am 30.04.2020 um 11:15 schrieb Andrew Mac: > It would be great to be able to visualize how a dictionary used by the > Klingons would be alphabetized. I wonder what the alphabetical order is > in Klingon. I like the request for Klingon alphabetical order at the > chabal page, and don’t understand why so many people are downvoting it. I guess because that's not something useful to have. I mean, what would it change? What's the purpose of having that? Next, we live in a world of parallel universes regarding the Klingon writing system, and they overlap. - TKD says "we know nothing about the writing system, and we use the English alphabetical order for convenience". - KLI says "here's a suggestion" and everybody uses it, but it's not canon - DSC uses those same letters, making them Star Trek canon. - nitpickers say that those letters are never canonically explained, so they could mean anything. So depending on what game we play, reading Klingon is "very hard" (Scotty, ST4) or it's a simply sound-to-character mapping. Where I'm pointing to is that I believe that Okrand intentionally keeps avoiding saying anything about the alphabet, because he first wrote in TKD that we do not know about it. Of course, he "accepts" what we are using, but that does not make it canon. If he would provide a Klingon alphabetical order, he would have to either base it on our used KLI pIqaD (thus making it "okrandian" canon), or he would need to make up something entirely different — and that could be anything (and knowing him, it would be something very irregularly complicated). -- Lieven L. Litaer aka the "Klingon Teacher from Germany" http://www.tlhInganHol.com http://klingon.wiki/En/PIqaD

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If pIqaD became Ca'Non..
by mayqel qunen'oS 30 Apr '20

30 Apr '20

I just thought of something interesting.. If pIqaD ever became Ca'Non, with the usual community-approved way by which things become Ca'Non, then perhaps that would mean that.. Klingon has place for no other punctuation except periods and commas, since these are the only punctuation signs for which there are pIqaD symbols. ~ mayqel qunen'oS

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Klingon Word of the Day: mIgh
by Klingon Word of the Day 30 Apr '20

30 Apr '20

Klingon Word of the Day for Thursday, April 30, 2020 Klingon word: mIgh Part of speech: verb Definition: be evil Source: TKD (94 KE, 131 EK) This Klingon Word of the Day is brought to you by qurgh (qurgh(a)kli.org)

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thoughts on the -be'pu' vs -pu'be'
by mayqel qunen'oS 30 Apr '20

30 Apr '20

It's not that I get off on talking about aspect.. In fact, discussions on aspect are for me the same thing as time travel was for janeway on voyager; it's something I don't want to get caught up in.. But as janeway finally *had* to time travel, I always find myself being caught up in the mess of aspect. There's the tkd Ca'Non example of {vIta'pu'be'} for "I didn't do it". The way I understand the {vIta'pu'be'} is that it goes like: {vIta'pu'}-be'. Because that way, the meaning goes "I have done it"-not. On the other hand, if we analyzed it as {vIta'}-pu'be', then it would mean that my doing it hasn't been completed, meaning either that my doing it has been interrupted, or that at the moment the sentence is uttered my doing it still takes place, and I'm actually literally saying "it's not yet completed whatever it is I'm trying to accomplish". So, the only way the {vIta'pu'be'} can mean "I didn't do it", is if the {-be'} is interpreted as to be acting on the entire {vIta'pu'}. Alternatively, perhaps we could say {vIta'be'pu'}, which would mean that "the event of my not doing it is completed". I can't say I see anything wrong with that. Did you do it yesterday ? Asks one. {vIta'be'pu'} replies the other i.e. "I didn't do it, and now (or then) my not doing it is completed". So, the question arises.. If the {vIta'pu'}-be' is roughly the same with the {vIta'be'pu'}, then why don't we always place the {-be'} on the end of the word allowing it to act on the sum of verb+suffixes which precede it ? And I believe, that the answer is "because there are cases where the thing which we need to negate is not the entire verb+prefixes, but just one of the preceding prefixes". Assume we need to say "I have begun not to need cherish you". If we write {qaQejnISchoHbe'pu'} then likely it means "I haven't begun to need to cherish you". I can't see a way in which one could apply the {-be'} only to the {-nIS}. To express the meaning of "I have begun not to need cherish you" we would need to write {qaQejnISbe'choHpu'}. So, in verb where the {-pu'} and the {-be'} coexist, we can't always be placing the {-be'} after the {-pu'}.. So, I really can't understand why instead of writing {vIta'pu'be'} and expecting the reader to take the {-be'} and apply it to the entire word which precedes it, why we can't just write {vIta'be'pu'} which is clearer and doesn't leave room for misinterpretation. Aspect is a jay' nightmare.. ~ mayqel qunen'oS the ancient cat will talk before I will

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Re: [tlhIngan Hol] If pIqaD became Ca'Non..
by Andrew Mac 30 Apr '20

30 Apr '20

It would be great to be able to visualize how a dictionary used by the Klingons would be alphabetized. I wonder what the alphabetical order is in Klingon. I like the request for Klingon alphabetical order at the chabal page, and don’t understand why so many people are downvoting it.

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