Okay, first, I have issues with this transliteration of “thalaron”, since Klingon lacks the consonant cluster “th”. More likely, it would be transliterated {tlheylaran} or something close to that. It’s not in the current lexicon, so we can’t be sure of the spelling. A Klingon couldn’t pronounce “thalaron” unless he had studied other languages, any more than an average English speaker could pronounce {Qu’vatlh}. Second, since you must be speaking from the future Trek Universe where thalaron and Remans exist In THAT Universe, your message might be read by a Reman, for whom the weapon isn’t alien. If the listener isn’t Reman and hears you say it’s a Reman weapon, of course, it’s an alien weapon, right? Why state the obvious? Why be so redundant? It’s like saying that “prendre” is a foreign word, especially French. So, I’d suggest: HIvmeH tlhoS tlhalaron woj lo’ rIymuSnganpu’ neH. Or perhaps: nuH lo’meH tlhoS tlheylaran woj wIv rIymuSnganpu’ neH. Or: tlhoy Qobmo’ tlheylaran woj, lo'Qo’ HochHom, ‘ach HIghqangchu’mo ‘ej’ batlhHa’qangmo’ le’ rIymuSnganpu’. Meanwhile, going back to the original, I think this is a weird use of the English word “especially”. “Thalaron is an alien weapon, especially of the Remans,” sounds like it might more naturally be expressed as “Thalaron is a specialty weapon of the Remans." I think of “especially” more often in sentences like “Klingons are an especially fierce race,” or “Thalaron is especially dangerous.” For that, I think more along the lines of {tlhInganpu’ qu’ law’ Hoch qu’ puS} or {tlheylaran Qob law’ Hoch Qob puS}. In other words “especially” suggests “uniquely” or “to an extreme degree that is unique’. It’s special because it is extreme. pItlh charghwI’ ‘utlh (ghaH, ghaH, -Daj)

On Oct 14, 2021, at 10:03 AM, Steven Boozer <sboozer@uchicago.edu> wrote:

This is especially <g> tricky:

nov nuH 'oH thalaron woj'e'; lulo’qu’ rIymuSnganpu’. Thalaron radiation is an alien weapon; the Remans use it a lot.

I was tempted to tag {rIymuSnganpu’} with {-‘e’}, but I felt using it twice in one sentence was confusing. You could break it into two sentences however:

nov nuH 'oH thalaron woj'e'. pIj (nuHvam) lulo’ rIymuSnganpu’’e’. Thalaron radiation is an alien weapon. The Remans use it (this weapon) frequently. (or, As for the Remans, they use it (this weapon) frequently.)

__ Voragh

From: mayqel qunen'oS Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2021 8:27 AM

Something which I wondered some time ago, was how to express "especially". "thalaron radiation is an alien weapon, especially of the Remans"

One way to approach this is by writing in detail what "especially of the Remans" actually means. For example "used mainly by theRemans", "mostly developed by the Remans", "having been made known by the Remans", etc..

On the other hand, perhaps we could avoid going from New York to Los Angeles through Chile, by simply writing: nov nuH 'oH thalaron woj'e', 'ej rIymuSngan nuH 'oHchu'.

Of course, if anyone has a better idea, then qeylIS knows, I'd love to hear it.

_______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org

Thalaron radiation research was banned by the Federation, but pursued in the Romulan Star Empire (most notably by Shinzon of Remus). Cf. https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Thalaron_radiation and https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/Thalaron_radiation for details. In “Star Trek Nemesis” (which I happened to see only a couple of weeks ago) the crew of the Enterprise were alarmed when their sensors detected thalaron radiation before they knew of the existence of Shinzon’s ship “Scimitar” IIRC. Voragh ______________________________________________________________ From: tlhIngan-Hol <tlhingan-hol-bounces@lists.kli.org> On Behalf Of SuStel On 10/14/2021 11:28 AM, Will Martin wrote: Second, since you must be speaking from the future Trek Universe where thalaron and Remans exist In THAT Universe, your message might be read by a Reman, for whom the weapon isn’t alien. If the listener isn’t Reman and hears you say it’s a Reman weapon, of course, it’s an alien weapon, right? Why state the obvious? Why be so redundant? "It's an alien weapon, used especially by the Remans" isn't redundant. The first part tells you that its origin isn't us, and the second part tells you who uses it most. HIvmeH tlhoS tlhalaron woj lo’ rIymuSnganpu’ neH. Or perhaps: nuH lo’meH tlhoS tlheylaran woj wIv rIymuSnganpu’ neH. Except it's not that only the Remans use it; they are just especially identified with it. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name<https://urldefense.com/v3/__http:/trimboli.name__;!!BpyFHLRN4TMTrA!pgUnwUBz-wRY5ouXVtzBh2kIztvCFXhZq4jF1fN8NSwMAZdlFVCFBaFbpvq_9Dls_I8$>

Thank you charghwI', voragh, SuStel, and nIqolay Q for sharing your thoughts. Comments on specific parts of your messages follow. charghwI':

Meanwhile, going back to the original, I think this is a weird use of the English word “especially”. SuStel: Yes, it is neither clear nor specific.

True, the original sentence is unclear and unspecific. I remember that the need for expressing "especially" came when I saw a sentence saying something like: "This god was especially a god of .." And I couldn't quite understand what the actual meaning was. So the need came to find a way to express "especially" in the same unclear and unspecific way. I thought "if the original is unclear, then the translation should be unclear too". So I said to myself "translate it in a similar unclear way, and good luck to the reader figuring out what the actual meaning is; as if anyone is ever going to read the klingon translation anyway..". So I did it using the {-chu'}, in a manner similar to the sentence that I wrote in the initial post: "he is a god of rain, thunder, and especially hurricanes" {SISmoH tuDmoH 'ej vungmoHchu' Qunvam} But reading the various replies of this thread, I was happy to see that there are many more options. voragh:

nov nuH 'oH thalaron woj'e'; lulo’qu’ rIymuSnganpu’. Thalaron radiation is an alien weapon; the Remans use it a lot.

Indeed, I could use the {-qu'} too: {SISmoH tuDmoH 'ej vungmoHqu' Qunvam} voragh:

nov nuH 'oH thalaron woj'e'. pIj (nuHvam) lulo’ rIymuSnganpu’’e’. Thalaron radiation is an alien weapon. The Remans use it (this weapon) frequently.

I hadn't thought the possibility of using an adverb, but indeed an adverb could work too: {SISmoH tuDmoH 'ej roD vungmoH Qunvam} charghwI':

I think more along the lines of {tlhInganpu’ qu’ law’ Hoch qu’ puS} or {tlheylaran Qob law’ Hoch Qob puS}. In other words “especially” suggests “uniquely” or “to an extreme degree that is unique’. It’s special because it is extreme.

Using the law'/puS construction is another wonderful idea, which didn't cross my mind. So, I could write: {SISmoHlaH tuDmoHlaH 'ej vungmoHlaH Qunvam, 'ej laHDaj wejDIch potlh law' Hoch potlh puS} nIqolay Q:

nov nuH 'oH thalaron woj'e', lulo' rIymuSnganpu''e'. "Thalaron radiation is an alien weapon, Remans in particular use it."

I think that at some point the thought of using the {-'e'} did cross my mind, but I got the feeling that if I used the {-'e'} this way, perhaps the meaning would become that "of all the alien races, it is only the remans who use the weapon". But I understand now that this would be the case only if we wrote {nov nuH 'oH thalaron woj'e', lulo' rIymuSnganpu' neH}. nIqolay Q:

Or one with somewhat more controversial grammar: nuH 'oH thalaron woj'e', lulo' novpu' rIymuSnganpu''e' je "Thalaran radiation is a weapon, aliens and especially Remans use it."

I really really *really* like this! But why do you characterize its' grammar as controversial? I can't find something weird in the grammar of this sentence. And reading your suggestion, I got another idea too: nuH 'oH thalaron woj'e', lulo' nov, 'ej lulo' je rIymuSngan'e' I hadn't ever thought of the possibility of using the {-'e'} with the {je} "too", but I think that perhaps it could be another nice way of expressing "especially". Again, thank you all for sharing your thoughts. Your messages gave me many beautiful ideas and options. -- Dana'an https://sacredtextsinklingon.wordpress.com/ Ζεὺς ἦν, Ζεὺς ἐστίν, Ζεὺς ἔσσεται· ὦ μεγάλε Ζεῦ

On Fri, Oct 15, 2021 at 9:05 AM SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:

I don't think it works. This says *Aliens and REMANS (as opposed to anyone else) use it.* *-'e'* makes a subject or object exclusive participants in the verb,

I don't think this is necessarily true. which is why I suggested it. The description in TKD is just

This suffix emphasizes that the noun to which it is attached is the topic of the sentence. In English, this is frequently accomplished by stressing the noun (saying it emphatically) or by special syntactic constructions.

It says nothing explicit that *-'e'* is *only* used in the sense of "X and nothing else". Some of the glosses given in TKD do include an exclusive meaning:

{lujpu' jIH'e'} <I, and only I, have failed.> <It is I who has failed.>

{De''e' vItlhapnISpu'} <I needed to get the INFORMATION.> <It was the information (and not something else) that I needed.>

But there are also non-exclusive glosses listed. "I needed to get the INFORMATION" doesn't necessarily imply that I didn't need anything else, only that I'm emphasizing the information as something I need. If I needed anything else, it's not important to this sentence. Showing contrast ("X and not Y") is a common use of emphasis, and one that's easy to convey in a quick gloss, so I suspect that's why some of the examples use a "X and not something else" gloss, but I don't see a particular reason to assume that *-'e'* *exclusively* means "X and nothing else". Other examples: *DaHjaj SuvwI''e' jIH* (TKW) *"Today I am a warrior." * The person saying this is presumably still other things (a Klingon, a person, a son/daughter, etc.), but the focus of this sentence is the fact that they're a warrior. The other things they are aren't relevant for the sentence or the context at hand. *qIbDaq SuvwI''e' SoH Dun law' Hoch Dun puS* (ST5) *"You would be the greatest warrior in the galaxy."* The grammar in this one is a little weird, since we haven't seen this kind of construction elsewhere, but there's no obvious contrastive meaning here. It's still possible for Klaa to be the best or most of some other category besides "warrior"; it's just that Vixis is talking about warriors in this sentence. "As for warriors, you would be the greatest in the galaxy." *reH Hegh yoHwI'pu''e'* (TKW) *"Always it is the brave ones who die."* The emphasis is on brave ones dying, but obviously the sentence can't mean "The brave ones (and no one else) always die." Even cowards gotta go sometime. There's also the use of *-'e'* with copula sentences, which are glossed in TKD with "As for the X...", which doesn't imply exclusiveness. "As for the commander, he is in his quarters" doesn't rule out the possibility of others being in the commander's quarters. It just means that we're talking about the commander. Another longer quote from KGT (p. 23):

The Morskan dialect, for example, does not put the suffix {-'e'} on the subject noun in a sentence translated with "to be" in Federation Standard (though the suffix is not missing in other contexts where it is used to focus attention on one noun rather than another within the sentence). Compare: Morskan: {tera'ngan gha qama'.} ("The prisoner is a Terran.") Standard: {tera'ngan ghaH qama''e'} ({tera'ngan,} "Terran"; {ghaH,} "he, she"; {qama',} "prisoner") Morskan: {bIghha'Daq ghata qama'.} ("The prisoner is in the prison.") Standard: {bIghHa'Daq ghaHtaH qama''e'.} ({bIghHa'Daq,} "in the prison"; {-taH,} "continuous") [...] {-'e'} added to {qama'} in the Morskan sentences would have its usual focusing function (the sentences would mean something like "It's the prisoner who's a Terran" and "It's the prisoner who's in the prison," respectively), the same as it would have in sentences of other types. This grammatical device is not available to speakers of {ta' Hol} who, to speak grammatically, must use {-'e'} in sentences of this type whether wishing to call extra attention to the subject noun or not.

Nothing here implies that *-'e' *means "X and nothing else", or that the subject is an exclusive participant in the verb, only that other possible subjects are less relevant to the sentence. Some uses of *-'e'* do have a clear "X and not something else" meaning. (*qun qon charghwI'pu''e'* (TKW)* "History is written by the victors.**"* is probably intended to mean "Victors (and nobody else) records history.") But I think this determination has to be based on context, and isn't inherent to the *-'e'* suffix.