Klingon Grammar Addenda

Key: Spoken by Okrand | Inferred from canon | Accepted usage

Appendix: A Selected List of Useful Klingon Expressions

  1. Telling time: Hours are expressed in 24­hour time. Generally, you can "ask" the time with the phrase rep yIper "Label the hour!" . You answer with a time label: rep wej "three A.M."; rep cha'maH "20 hours (i.e. 8 P.M.)"; rep loS wejmaH "4:30 A.M." You can also use the phrase 'arlogh Qoylu'pu'"How many times has it (a signal bell, maybe) been heard?". This can be augmented with other elements, eg., mamejDI' 'arlogh Qoylu'pu' "What time do we leave?" You answer with the number of times: cha'logh "two o'clock". [SK 2/3/99]

    Presumably, you can't tell fractions of an hour using the X­logh method, only whole hours. Also, the observant student will note that this somewhat contradicts the time­telling examples on the CK tape. The rules given were given more recently, and they supercede CK where they disagree with it.
     

  2. Similes are expressed by a phrase with an adjective and a following metaphorical phrase, eg. puj SuvwI'vetlh; bIQ rur "That warrior is as weak as water". [KGT p.127]

  3. Color terms can be made more specific by additional adjectives or by the simile method shown above, eg. SuD 'ej wov "yellow"; Doq 'ej Qaj wuS rur "Kraj­lip red" or "brown"; Doqqu' "deep red". [KGT p.82; HQ8:1 p.7]

  4. Age is expressed by the formula # ben jIboghpu' "I am # years old" (literally "I was born # years ago"); as a question, it is ben 'ar bIboghpu' [SK 12/15/96]

  5. The verbs Sum/Hop generally refer to location in relation to the speaker, ex., Sum raS "The table is near to me". To change the referent of the verb, you can use ­Daq, eg., yaSDaq Sum raS "The table is near the officer". [HQ7:4 p.10]

    We're not told exactly how Hop works: "The table is far from the officer" ?yaSDaq Hop raS, ?yaSvo' Hop raS. Since ­vo' seems to mean exclusively motion away from, the concensus is that the first version, with ­Daq, is correct, odd as that seems to an English speaker. It's maybe not so odd if we take it to mean "At the reference point of the officer's location, the table is far away".
     

©1999 Terrence Donnelly