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Hello, and welcome. You’re listening to DaHjaj Hol, your daily dose of Klingon language.
I’m your host, Lawrence Schoen. it’s Tuesday, January 18th, 2011, which makes it Noun Day. I picked today’s noun to reflect the fact that I’m traveling far from home. Yes, I’m in a distant land at the moment, and the locals can tell I’m not from around here. In Klingon I’d be called a nov which translates as alien or foreigner.
That’s N O V. Say it a few times. nov. . . nov. . . nov. . .
It’s a simple enough word. So simple that I think you need a couple bonus verbs to use with it, and maybe a leftover too.
The first bonus verb is rur, which means resemble. That spelled R U R. rur. . . rur. . .
rur lets you talk about how one thing appears to be much like another, but isn’t. Thus:
tlhIngan rur nov the alien resembles a Klingon
pu’ rur nISwI’ the disruptor resembles the phaser
charwI’ rur bolwI’ the drooler resembles the slimy one
I think you’ve got it.
Here’s another bonus verb for you: maS. That’s M A Capital S. Say maS. . . maS. . .
maS means prefer, as in:
betleH maS nov the alien prefers the bat’leth
ghungwI’ maS jabwI’ the waiter prefers the hungry one
DujlIj maS tlhIngan the Klingon prefers your ship
Easy enough, yes?
And now, something completely different. A special word that will let you combine two sentences! Fans of English grammar will recognize this as a coordinating conjunction. The rest of you will recognize it as the word but.
That word is ‘ach, spelled apostrophe A CH. Say ‘ach. . . ‘ach. . .
‘ach works like this. Suppose you have two simple sentences.
Sentence 1: the alien laughs Hagh nov
Sentence 2: the Romulan drools bol romuluSngan
If we wanted to combine them to say the alien laughs but the Romulan drools all we have to do is put ‘ach inbetween them. ‘ach conjoins the two sentences. Thus:
Hagh nov ‘ach bol romuluSngan
the alien laughs but the Romulan drools
Let’s try it with some objects now:
Sentence 1: HIch rur nuH the weapon resembles a hand gun
Sentence 2: beH maS nov the foreigner prefers a rifle
To put them together with a but we just add ‘ach
HIch rur nuH ‘ach beH maS nov
the weapon resembles a hand gun, but the foreigner prefers a rifle
I’ve given you a lot to think about today, and a lot to play with. Not just a new noun and a couple bonus verbs, but a leftover which will allow you to raise your spoken sentences to a whole new level. Eventually, you’ll look back on this and wonder why you found any of it difficult, but for now, take it slowly. Use your vocabulary to make pairs of sentences and link them using ‘ach. Do a lot of these before tomorrow. The more comfortable you are with this, the sooner you’ll appreciate what I mean when I say qo’mey poSmoH Hol, Language Opens Worlds.
Tags: Klingon
You should mention that ‘ach is sometimes shortened to ‘a.
01.18.11 at 9:00 am
David, I fully intend to, but doing so in that lesson seems more a distraction than a useful addition.
01.18.11 at 9:28 pm