Re: Klingon vs. Tengwar - UserFriendly

On 11//25/06, Benct Philip Jonsson <bpjonsson@...> wrote:
> I dare however suggest that 'Orc' in Klingon be _orQ_ (_'orQ_?).
With a very few exceptions (notably |-rgh| /rG/ = [rG] or [4G]),
tlhIngan Hol phonology allows no consonant clusters in syllables; for
instance, Worf's name is generally rendered in "the original Klingon"
as a bisyllable |worIv|, because |-rv| is illegal (and [f] doesn't
exist).  So "orc" would have to transliterate as something like
|'orIq| [?O4Iq], but since neology is frowned upon we generally just
insert the desired word as-is..

Translating "wannabe" suffers from the lack of "to be" in Klingon;
unlike the Quenya case, this is not ignorance but a design point of
the language: there is no such verb.

So you could translate it somewhat loosely as "persons who admire
orcs" {<orc>pu' Ho'bogh nuvpu''e'}, or "persons who want to *become*
orcs" {<orc>pu' moj luneHbogh nuvpu''e'}.  You could also use
something completely different, like "so-called orcs" {<orc>pu'qoq} or
"apparent orcs" {<orc>pu'Hey}..

The "want to become" version is grammatically odd because {neH} "want"
is a special case.  Using the general form analogous to
auxiliary+infinitive, "they want to become them" would be *{moj 'e'
luneH}, but the verb {neH} has a special simplifying rule that makes
it just {moj luneH} without the {'e'}, or even {moj neH} without the
verbal prefix {lu-} (they V it).  Which means the whole thing is not a
normal clause, and the subordination via {-bogh} may not therefore be
possible, or it may need to be done differently.

--
Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>

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