For those without a copy of The Klingon Way handy:
QamvIS Hegh qaq law' torvIS yIn qaq puS
Better to die on our feet than live on our knees. (ST6/TKW)
(TKW p.95): More literally, this is “Dying while standing is preferable to living while kneeling.” The grammatical construction is a bit aberrant; one would expect {QamtaHvIS} and {tortaHvIS}. In proverbs, grammatical shortcuts
are not uncommon. Even the Federation Standard might be considered somewhat incomplete. One would expect “It is better to die on our feet than
to live on our knees.”
--
Voragh
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From: SuStel
Sent: Tuesday, February 9, 2021 7:59 AM
On 2/9/2021 8:16 AM, mayqel qunen'oS wrote:
Based on the Ca'Non {QamvIS Hagh qaq law' torvIS yIn qaq puS}, could I construct sentences as the above, or is the QamvIS Hegh.. some kind of "maltz-said-so-special-phrase-so-shut-up-and-don't-generalize" case?
It's a Maltz-said-so-special-phrase-so-shut-up-and-don't-generalize case. It is described in
The Klingon Way as aberrant grammar.