On Wed, Aug 23, 2017 at 11:02 AM, mayqel qunenoS <mihkoun@gmail.com> wrote:

But since paq'batlh doesn't employ punctuation, there is the possibility that this sentence was meant to be {bI'reS. qeylIS vaq molor}. So now the translation becomes "Beginning of the story. Molor taunts Kahless". Or maybe even "Beginning of the story: Molor taunts Kahless".

This scene doesn't take place at the beginning of the story, or anywhere near it.

> 2) may' bI'reS bejtaHvIS mon.
> «First, he watches the battle smiling.»

This is even more confusing.

A lot of times a line from the paq'batlh is not a complete sentence, and the rest of the sentence is in the preceding or following line:

chalqachDajvo' QaSDaj bej
may' bI'reS bejtaHvIS mon

But that doesn't clear it up either. Musta been a late night in the translation mines, I guess.

If the punctuation of this sentence was written by 'oqranD (was it ?), then here I can understand the {bI'reS} indeed being used as a timestamp.

If however the punctuation wasn't written by 'oqranD, and if the "," wasn't placed before the {bI'reS} by him, then there could be the possibility that the {bI'reS} refers to the "1959", to mean "at the beginning of 1959".

Okrand did the translations for the museum audio and he does his own punctuation. You might be worrying too much about punctuation here. (Also, the first flight of the X-15 was in June 1959.)

> 4) wa'DIch nach 'ay'...
> «First Nach, the form of the head, ...»

I can't understand this sentence at all. All I get is "First, part of the head.."

It's from a part of the paq'batlh where Kahless is demonstrating various mok'bara moves to his father and brother in Gre'thor. It has sort of a mystical, ritualistic feel, and is mostly sentence fragments. I don't have the paq'batlh with me at the moment, but fortunately this part and its translation were posted to the list a few months ago:

wa'DIch nach 'ay'
cha'DIch ghIv 'ay'
wejDIch burgh 'ay'
loSDIch bIng 'ay'
vaghDIch Dung 'ay'
tagha' tIq Hoch botlh
Hochlogh Dat joqtaHjaj

First Nach, the form of the head.
Then Ghiv, the form of the legs and arms.
Then Burgh, the form of the stomach.
Then Bing, the form of the space above and below.
Then Dung, the space beside.
And finally Tiq, the heart and center of all things,
May it forever beat, anywhere.
(paq'raD, canto 3, lines 10-16, p102)

(Note that the English doesn't quite get the meaning of Klingon positional nouns.)