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DaHjaj Hol 110616 – from #tlhIngan #tlh

4 comments Written on June 16th, 2011 by
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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.

Today’s suffix is –vo’. That’s V, O, Apostrophe. –vo’ means from, as in indicating movement away from some thing or place. It’s a Type 5 noun suffix, and one of two noun suffixes that function something like prepostions, and it’s by far the simpler of the two. We’ll save the other one for another Thursday.

Dujvo’ ‘el HoD
the captain entered from the ship

mugato’vo’ manargh
we escaped from the mugato

tachvo’ ‘upqu’ Soj
the food from the bar was disgusting


I don’t know if you’re going to like this suffix, at least, not until you learn more verbs of motion so you can talk about where you (and others) are coming from. In any language, certain parts of speech carry restrictions as to when and where and how they can be used, and in a small way you’re seeing that here. But, once you have the right verbs, you’ll soon be traveling back from newly opened worlds. qo’mey poSmoH Hol.

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Today’s podcast is brought to you by the 18th annual summer conference of the Klingon Language Institute (aka the qep’a’ wa’maH chorghDIch) which runs from Sunday morning on August 14th through late evening Tuesday, August 16th. The following day, Wednesday, August 17th, is the official beginning of the 69th annual World Science Fiction Convention, conveniently taking place right there in Reno, Nevada!

Back to the qep’a’: This year, we’ll be splitting the conference into two parts:

Part One will be the usual blend of fellowship, curse warfare, singing, story-telling, and assorted language challenges as we’ve enjoyed for the past seventeen years, and will run from Sunday through Monday. We’ll begin in a meeting room at the Hyatt Place Reno-Tahoe Airport Hotel for Sunday and Monday, and on Tuesday morning we’ll move to larger function space over at Reno’s convention center (courtesy of Renovation, the 69th World Science Fiction Convention).

Part Two will begin at noon on Tuesday, and consist of various introductory lessons and explanations intended for newbies, beginners, and visitors dressed in Federation pajamas (or other noncombatants). Klingon grammarians will be on hand to help newcomers (not to be confused with linguistic “fresh meat!”) learn the basics of Klingon and use it to chat, sing, play games, and insult one another.

Full details can be found at http://www.speakklingon.info/

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4 comments “DaHjaj Hol 110616 – from #tlhIngan #tlh”

I’m a bit skeptical towards «tachvo’ ‘upqu’ Soj»; I read this as “the food is disgusting in a direction leading away from the bar». I’d recommend simply «’upqu’ tach Soj» (“the food of the bar is disgusting”).
One could also say «tachDaq ‘upqu’ Soj», “the food was disgusting in the bar”. Of course, that could also mean “the food I brought from home was made disgusting by its proximity to the bar” or “all food is disgusting everywhere, including near the bar”, but that’s where context comes in.

You have every right to be skeptical. tachvo’ ‘upqu’ Soj is clearly a marked sentence. I suspect many (if not most, maybe even all) KLI Grammarians would consider this ungrammatical because there is no verb of motion involved. However, despite this, most everyone with even a modicum of Klingon fluency will correctly parse it correctly. And that’s because there’s a elided phrase that’s understood. the food [that came] from the bar was disgusting.

By all rights, I shouldn’t have used it. And yet, as I was preparing my examples, I realized I haven’t yet introduced much in the way of verbs of motion (just the two I used in the other examples). And I always like to provide at least three examples.

Your two alternatives work very well, but neither can be used in the podcast (at least not yet) because I haven’t introduced -Daq. Nor have we talked about using stative verbs to modify nouns.

But, yes, I did cheat a bit with this example. HIvqa’ veqlargh.

One use of the suffix -vo’ that I find very interesting is «naDevvo’ jIleghlaHchu’be’.» (“I can’t see well from here.”) from “Conversational Klingon”. I remember how at one point I wanted to translate the phrase “I can see my house from here.” and wasn’t sure if I could say «naDevvo’ juHwIj vIleghlaH»; it made sense, but part of me felt it should be simply «naDev juHwIj vIleghlaH». However, fortunately I had that example sentence to guide me.

…and then, of course, there’s «pa’vo’ pagh leghlu’» (“The room has no view.”, lit. “Nothing is seen from the room.”), also from CK.

Another interesting use of -vo’ is from “Power Klingon”: «chaq SoHvo’ vay’ vIje’ vIneH» (“Perhaps I want to buy something from you.”). While using -vo’ makes a lot of sense, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see, for instance, «SoHvaD vay’ vIje’» (“I exchange money at you for something.”).


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