[[
  [2009-04-14] added document header
  Style: <>=bold

  Type: email
  Date: 19 July 1999
  Title: where do you live? (from Marc)
  Author: Marc Okrand, Will Martin, Roger Cheesbro
  Summary: How to say "Where do you live?".
]]

Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 19:04:17 -0400    | Header from the message
To: tlhingan-hol@kli.org                 | forwarded to tlhingan-hol
From: TPO <cheesbro@rpa.net>             |
Subject: where do you live? (from Marc)  |

From the startrek.klingon news group:

Will Martin wrote in message

[snip]


>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 [do something to] 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 [do
something to] 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 [do
something to] 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).

[[eof]]