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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.
Monday means verbs, and I have two I’d like to share with you. Today we’ll be exploring both ends of the temperature spectrum.
Our first verb is tuj. T, U, J. tuj means be hot
Our second verb is bIr. B, Uppercase I, R. bIr means be cold
Both of these are what we might think of as stative verbs. They don’t describe actions; rather, they describe states of being. Thus:
bIr chatlh
the soup is cold
not qa’vIn tlhutlh chom tujDI’ qa’vIn
the bartender never drinks coffee when the coffee is hot
HeghchoH romuluSngan ‘ach bIrbe’
the Romulan has died, but he’s not cold
ghem tuj law’ megh tuj puS
the midnight snack is hotter than lunch
A very talented Klingon speaker once told me that learning these two verbs transformed how he thought about the language, and maybe it will for you too. He’d learned other verbs of quality before, but somehow talking about hot and cold brought a kind of physicality to his vocabulary that made everything much realer for him. From that point on, the language opened up new worlds for him. qo’mey poSmoH Hol.
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Today’s podcast is brought to you by The Klingon Dictionary, by Marc Okrand. |
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Tags: Klingon
Shouldn’t the second sentance use taHvIS and not DI’?
Your sentance means ‘As soon as the coffee is hot, the bartender never drinks coffee.’ I’d expect the Klingon to be “not qa’vIn tlhutlh chom tujtaHvIS qa’vIn” – While the coffee is hot the bartender never drinks the coffee”. Although I’d probably go with the shorter “tujtaHvIS qa’vIn not tlhutlh chom” – while the coffee is hot, the bartender never drinks it.
Keep up the great show, this is really helpful stuff!
02.21.11 at 8:18 am
You’re absolutely right, my translation is flawed. This is what I get for trying to do a recording when I really should be sleeping. Or put another way, this is why we have replacement proverbs. HIvqa’ veqlargh
Using -taHvIS would certainly yield a much better translation, but I hadn’t yet introduced any Type 7 verb suffixes, so that’s not an option.
Thanks for listening, for commenting, and for correcting.
02.21.11 at 4:39 pm