Maltz Online
What we call "brown" would be
described in Klingon by using the
verb Doq be red, orange. If the
context is dear (such as contrasting
a brown thing with a thing that
cannot be described as Doq, such as
something that's SuD
HIvje' Doq vIneH I want the Doq cup
Only the brown cup could be described as Doq; the blue cup is definitely not Doq since it is SuD.
On the other hand, to be more precise when talking about the color (when, for example, there's a brown cup and a red cup), Klingons would typically use the phrase:
Doq 'ej wovbe' be orange, red and not be bright
To get even more specific (to be able to refer to different kinds of browns) would involve comparisons. For example:
Doq 'ej Qaj wuS rur be orange, red and resemble kradge lips
The lips of the kradge are presumably a particular shade of brown.
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In English, the preposition "in" is sometimes locative (that is, referring to location) in meaning (e.g., "in the house," "on the table") but sometimes not ("trust in God," "believe in magic"). In fact, in English, "in" frequently doesn't have a literally locative sense. We use it all over the place: "in debt," "work in television," "in preparing this report," "speaking in Klingon," and so on. Likewise, in addition to the locative uses of the English preposition "from" ("run from the burning house," "traveled from Paris"), there are non-locative uses ("know right from wrong," "stop me from eating"). The story's the same for other English prepositions (for example, locative "on the table," non-locative "go on with your story;" locative "under the table," non-locative "under discussion").
In Klingon, however, the noun suffixes -Daq (the general locative) and -vo' from express only notions related to space ("to a place," "in a place," "from a place," and so on). They are thus not the same as English prepositions, which have a wider range of usage.
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As far as I know, 'ej means "and" in the sense of "in addition," "also," "as well as," and the like. It does not have any temporal or sequential implications, That is, it does not (by itself) mean "and then."
For example, Klingon {jISop 'ej
jItlhutlh} I eat and I drink means "I
eat and also I drink." It could refer
to events that occur in
alternating fashion (eat some, drink some, eat
some, drink some more) or,
especially in the case of some
Klingons, events that occur pretty
much simultaneously. It could also
mean "I eat and then I drink," but it
does not necessarily mean that. If
that is the intended meaning (and if
being a little vague or ambiguous or
unclear will cause misunderstanding
and hence discomfort), additional
stuff must be added or the whole
thing must be rephrased to make the
meaning explicit (such as
jItlhutlhpa' jISop
Similarly, the most likely interpretation of jItlhutlh 'ej jIQong I drink and I sleep is not that I drink in my sleep (though it could be used for that if I really did it), but rather simply "I drink and also I sleep," a listing of two things I do, presumably (but not explicitly) not at the same time.
Then there's qaDuQ 'ej bIregh . It probably would be used when the stabbing precedes (and is the direct cause of) the bleeding. But it doesn't explicitly say that; it only says "I stab you" and it also says "you bleed." The sequential interpretation (and/or the cause-and-effect interpretation) is due to the way the world works. Or some worlds.
Since it is possible to say either jISop, jItlhutlh I eat, I drink or {jISop 'ej jItlhutlh} I eat and I drink to refer to the same thing, it might seem as though 'ej is optional. Grammatically, that's fair to say. In terms of meaning, however, when 'ej is used, it adds something; it emphasizes or points out some sort of connection between the two events -- though not necessarily a temporal one.
Finally, although I've been
referring to "events," the same holds
for states and conditions and the
like. Thus, jIghung 'ej jIQeH
In short, 'ej is neutral as to time.
The verb for "write" in the sense of "compose" is qon, literally record. This is used for songs and also for literary works (poems, plays, romance novels, and so on). As has been pointed out, it's as if the song or story is somehow out there and the "writer" comes into contact with it, extracts it, and records it.
The verb usually translated "write," ghItlh, refers to the physical activity of writing (moving the pencil around, chiseling, etc.)
The question is, if you can ghItlh it, must you also qon it? That is, is everything that is written down the result of composition (in the sense described above)?
The answer is "not necessarily." There's another verb, gher, which doesn't have a straightforward equivalent in English, but which has sometimes been translated (not entirely satisfactorily) as "formulate" or "compile" or "pull together." The idea seems to be that of bringing thoughts together into some kind of reasonably coherent form so that they can be conveyed to someone else.
Thus, one would usually say
naD tetlh gher
One would probably gher, rather than qon, a suggested list of readings, a gazetteer, a simple menu, or the instructions for assembling a toy (assuming the latter is not really an exercise in creative writing).
One might also say QIn gher he/she formulates a message or, more colloquially, he/she writes a message. But now it begins to get tricky. Using gher here implies that the writer of the message was passing along some information he or she got elsewhere, such as scribbling down a telephone message. Saying QIn qon he/she composes a message or he/she writes a message (literally he/she records a message) suggests that the writer is presenting some new information as opposed to merely passing something along. It may also imply that the written message has some sort of literary merit, and thus be a compliment.
But not always. HIDjolev qon he/she composes the menu suggests that the speaker thinks the list of available fare is written with a certain literary flair. This is not likely to be said of menus in Klingon restaurants (whose menus, if posted at all, tend to be rather pithy), and thus could easily be taken as an insult.
Similarly, something like {bom gher} he/she formulates the song would be taken as a disparaging comment about the song or its composer (and is, in fact, sometimes heard when the song in question is of non- Klingon origin).
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Actually, there are several words referring to wall:
An interior wall (such as a wall separating your living room from your kitchen) is a tlhoy'.
An exterior wall (that is, a wall which separates the inside of a building from the outside) is a reD.
For the interior side of an exterior wall, it is quite common to use tlhoy', but the phrase pa' reD, literally room's exterior wall (pa' room) is also heard, referring to the wall in a room which faces outside (as opposed to the other walls in the room whose other sides are still indoors).
The wall around a city is a yergho, which is apparently derived from yer domain, holdings, territory, plus gho circle.
A wall which divides a territory into parts (such as the Berlin Wall) is also called a tlhoy', even though neither side of it is the interior of a structure. On occasion, for clarity, such a wall is termed a {chevwI' tlhoy'} separator wall (chev separate, -wI' that which does [something]) or a pIn tlhoy', literally boss wall, presumably dating back to a time when each subterritory had a specific person in charge.
The phrase pa' tlhoy'
A tlhoy' interior wall need not be vertical. In a multistory structure, the stories are separated by what Klingon architects and builders call a tlhoy' SaS horizontal wall (tlhoy' interior wall, SaS be horizontal). The side of this "wall" which is the bottom of the upper story is the rav floor; the side which is the top of the lower story is the rav'eq ceiling (based on rav floor plus 'eq, an element otherwise unknown [there is no evidence it is connected to 'eq be early]).
rav floor is also used for the floor of a room on ground level (or a basement floor, for that matter), even though there is no corresponding rav'eq and no {tlhoy' SaS}.
Similarly, though in general rav'eq ceiling refers to the ceiling of a room that has a room above it, it may also be used for the ceiling of a room on the top floor, even though there is no corresponding rav and no tlhoy' SaS. On occasion, though, the ceiling of the top floor is called pa' beb, literally room's roof (from pa' room plus beb roof). The term beb refers to the covering on top of a structure.
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Actually, there are several ways to ask "What time is it?" in Klingon. Here are a couple.
In dealing with time in interplanetary communication, Klingons have come to use the 24- hour system favored by the Federation. There are 24 hours in a day (meaning 24 Earth hours in an Earth day), numbered one through 24. For example:
tera' rep wa' Earth hour one or one o'clock
tera' rep cha'maH Earth hour 20 or 20 o'clock or eight o'clock p.m.
tera' rep loS wejmaH Earth hour 4:30
If the context is clear, the word tera' Earth may be left out:
rep cha'maH 20 o'clock, eight o'clock p.m.
When working within this system, one doesn't inquire as to the time; one demands that the number of the current hour be specified. Thus, the equivalent expression to 'What time is it?" is a command:
rep yIper! Ascertain the hour! Specify the hour!
This is literally "Label the hour!
Though the verb per label is usually
used in the sense of attach or
When giving the time using this
system, hours are numbered, not
counted. That is, one says rep cha'
In nonmilitary contexts (rare as these may be) and situations where interplanetary communication is not a concern, the most common way of asking "What time is it?" in Klingon is quite different. It is based on the way the question was asked long ago, in a time before Klingons traveled around the galaxy and before there was any significant amount of interaction between Klingons and residents of other planets:
'arlogh Qoylu'pu'?
This is literally
What is not clear from this locution is what it is that has supposedly been heard. In modern Klingon, the "what" in this phrase is never expressed.
It appears as though, long ago,
at least some Klingons were notified
of the time by some audible signal
(though what means were used to
calculate the time in the first place
remain to be discovered). Perhaps
this signal was a specific sound (a
person shouting? a beat on a drum?
A gong? the growl of an animal?)
and that word was originally part of
the expression, for example, {'arlogh
bey Qoylu'pu'?}
It has also been speculated that there was once a bit more to this expression, namely an element stating the time period the questioner was concerned about. For example, maybe people said:
DaHjaj 'arlogh Qoylu'pu'?
That is,
Or maybe the fuller expression was a little less specific:
qen 'arlogh Qoylu'pu'? Recently, how many times has someone heard it?
Regardless of its original full
form, the expression comes down to
us now as simply {'arlogh
Qoylu'pu'?}. The phrase is considered
an idiom because what it means
(What time is it?) cannot be
understood on the basis of the
meanings of its components (
The answer to the question 'arlogh How many times? is, as might be expected, X-logh, where X is some number. For example:
cha'logh Qoylu'pu'.
This is literally
The idiomatic 'arlogh Qoylu'pu' also shows up in such questions as "What time do we leave?":
mamejDI' 'arlogh Qoylu'pu'?
This is literally
An answer might be "We (will) leave at eight o'clock":
mamejDI' chorghlogh Qoylu'pu'
Literally,
Since subordinate clauses such as mamejDI' when we leave can come before or after the main clause, it's also possible to say:
'arlogh Qoylu'pu' mamejDI'? chorghlogh Qoylu'pu' mamejDI'.
Literally,
In actual conversation, of course, it's usually not so repetitive. You'd probably hear:
'arlogh Qoylu'pu' mamejDI'? chorghlogh Qoylu'pu'. How many times will someone have heard (it) when we leave? Someone will have heard (it) eight times.
Or even:
'arlogh Qoylu'pu' mamejDI'? chorghlogh.
How many times will someone have heard (it) when we leave? Eight times.