On Wed, Nov 29, 2017 at 11:36 AM, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:

On 11/29/2017 11:26 AM, Ed Bailey wrote:

Age is normally expressed as in the example {loSmaH ben jIboghpu'}, "I was born 40 years ago."

http://klingonska.org/canon/search/?file=1996-12-12a-news.txt&q=age

The English word "ago" tends to be always relative to the present. {ben} is glossed as "years ago" but is it necessarily relative to the present, or is it relative to the event being talked about?

Say we want to use age to express when something happens, as in {qaSpu' wanI'vam loSmaH ben jIboghpu'DI'}. Does it say "This event happened when I was 40 years old (when I had been born 40 years previously)" or "This event happened when I was born forty years ago." Switching the dependency of the clauses, {qaSpu'DI' wanI'vam loSmaH ben jIboghpu'}, seems to have the desired effect on {ben}: "When this event happened, I had been born 40 years ago (that is, I was 40)." But I can still conceive that it could be understood as "I was born 40 years ago when this event happened." Reversing the order of the clauses shouldn't have any effect in Klingon, but I would tend to interpret {loSmaH ben jIboghpu' qaSpu'DI' wanI'vam} as "I was born 40 years ago, when this event happened" instead of "I had been born 40 years previously when this event happened."

Are there relevant canon examples?

I think the *ago* in *ben* and *Hu'* are always relative to the present of the speaker, but I have no evidence to back this up aside from the *ago* in their given translations. If you want to say something like *ten years before I was born,* but you don't want to give away your age and do the math yourself, you'll have to say something like *jIboghpa' qaSpu' wa'maH DIS; qaSpa' poHvam, blah blah blah...* This is really clumsy and I don't like it, but I can't think of a better way to do it. I tried to come up with something about *qaSpa' boghpu'ghachwIj wa'maH DIS vorgh,* but that doesn't sound right to me.

I had also been thinking of something like {qaStaHvIS yInwIj DIS loSmaHDIch}, which would be okay I guess if a storytelling tone was desired. This isn't useful for events before one's birth, though, which your examples deal with. Perhaps {ngugh loSmaH ben jIboghpu'}? But if {ben} is necessarily relative to the present, this will just be nonsense. As far as the gloss goes, it seems "ago" can be used relative to some other time than the present, as in "at that time it had happened forty years ago." But it's not very elegant phrasing. <http://www.avg.com/email-signature?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail> Virus-free. www.avg.com <http://www.avg.com/email-signature?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail> <#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2>

On 11/29/2017 1:22 PM, mayqel qunenoS wrote:

I'm not quite sure I understand the subject.

But if indeed I understand what we are trying to say, then why not use:

{loS maH ben jIbogh. ngugh..} forty years ago I was born. then..

or

{loS maH ben jIbogh. qaSpa' wanI'vam..} forty years ago I was born. before that event (i.e. my birth) happened..

The question is, how would you describe an event at a time a known period before or after an event whose time was NOT known? How would you describe /ten years before he was born/ if you don't know when he was born, but you do know the event happened ten years before that? -- SuStel http://trimboli.name

On 11/29/2017 2:53 PM, mayqel qunenoS wrote:

{qaStaHvIS yInDaj nungbogh DIS loSDIch'e', tagh noH} while the fourth year which preceded his life was happening, the war started

What is the fourth year which preceded his life? Of all the years that preceded his life, it was the fourth? What you want is something that pinpoints the start of the four-year period before he was born. You might make that into Klingon, but it's getting really awkward and nonspecific. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name

On 11/29/2017 3:08 PM, mayqel qunenoS wrote:

SuStel

...

What is the fourth year which preceded his life?

hmm.. I see what you mean. What would you think of the following then ?

{qaStaHvIS yInDaj bI'reS nungbogh DIS loSDIch'e', tagh noH}

while the fourth year which preceded the beginning of his life was happening, the war started

You're using "fourth year," but to me "fourth year" is counting years as they occur, not counting them backwards. Anyway, the very fact that you have to resort to locutions like this shows has ill-equipped the language is at this sort of thing. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name

On Wed, Nov 29, 2017 at 2:16 PM, nIqolay Q <niqolay0@gmail.com> wrote:

Lieven asked Okrand about this at qepHom'a' 2016, and posted about it to the mailing list, although I'm not sure he got around to posting it to qephom.de or anywhere.

http://lists.kli.org/pipermail/tlhingan-hol-kli.org/2016-July/000832.html

So "this event happened when I was forty" would be *qaStaHvIS DISwIj loSmaHDIch*,

In this conversation Okrand gives ordinal numbers for age, beginning with {DIS paghDIch} for the year following birth. This conflicts with the way I thought Klingon birthdays were numbered: {qoS wa'DIch} for the actual day that someone is born, {qoS cha'DIch} for its first anniversary, etc.. It would hardly make sense for the zeroth year to start on the first birthday and end on the second, but perhaps I'm mistaken about this birthday numbering, since I can't find a source for it.

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