Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 19:04:17 -0400 | Header from the message
To: [email protected] | forwarded to tlhingan-hol
From: TPO [email protected] |
Subject: where do you live? (from Marc) |

From the startrek.klingon news group:

Will Martin wrote in message

And which of the following would be the most common form of the question, "Where do you live?" and what form would the most common answer take?:

nuq DaDab?

nuqDaq DaDab?

nuqDaq bIDab?

Actually, the most common form of the question "Where do you live?" is not a question at all, but a command such as:

Daq DaDabbogh yIngu' "Identify the place where you live"

(Daq "place"; DaDabbogh "that you live at," made up of Da- "you it," Dab "live in/at, dwell in/at, inhabit" -bogh "relative clause marker"; yIngu' "identify it!" consisting of yI- "imperative prefix," ngu' "identify")

Perhaps a translation such as "Identify the place that you live at" or "Identify the place that you inhabit" is more revealing.

Answers are likely to be brief and to the point:

Daqvam "this place" (Daq "place," -vam "this")
pa' "there"
naDev "here"
qachvetlh "that building" (qach "building," -vetlh "that")
Qo'noS "Kronos"

It is possible, however, to respond with a full sentence:

Daqvam vIDab "I live at this place"
pa' vIDab "I live there"
naDev vIDab "I live here"
qachvetlh vIDab "I live in/at that building"
Qo'noS vIDab "I live on Kronos"

(vIDab "I live in/at," consisting of vI- "I it," Dab "live in/at, dwell in/at, inhabit")

Of the three suggested ways to ask "Where do you live?" the first is the most acceptable:

nuq DaDab "What do you inhabit? What do you dwell at?"

(nuq "what?"; DaDab "you live in/at it, you dwell in/at it, you inhabit it," containing the prefix Da- "you it")

The English translations of nuq DaDab are very awkward (from an English point of view) and don't get across the sense of the Klingon all that well. The less literal "Where do you live?" is what is really being asked. In Klingon, when one lives in a place or dwells in a place, he or she is thought of as "occupying" or "inhabiting" that place; not doing something at that location, but doing something to it (occupying it).