A Quick Reference to Adverbials in Klingon

The following is a list of all the regular adverbials in Klingon.

Klingon	English	Source
batlh	honored, with honor, honorably, honorable, well	[TKD, TKW]
batlh­Ha’	dishonorably	[TKW, KGT]
bong	accidentally, by accident	[TKD]
chaq	perhaps, maybe	[TKD, TKW]
cha’­logh	twice	[TKD]
chIch	purposely, on purpose, intentionally	[TKD]
DaH	now	[TKD]
Do’	luckily, with luck	[TKD]
Do’­Ha’	unfortunately	[KGT]
ghay­tan	likely	[TKDa]
ghay­tan­Ha’	unlikely	[Radio Times]
ghIq	and then, after that, by then, subsequently	[HQ 8:3]
Hoch­logh	all times, always (emphatic)	[KGT]
jaS	differently	[TKDa]
loQ	slightly, a little bit	[TKD, TKW]
motlh	usually, typically, as expected	[KGT]
nI­teb	alone, acting alone	[TKDa, TKW]
nI­teb­Ha’	together	[BoP]
nom	fast, quickly	[TKD, TKW]
not	never	[TKD, TKW]
ngugh	then, at that time	[News 1999-11-05]
pagh­logh	zero times, never (emphatic)	[KGT]
pay’	suddenly	[TKD]
pe’­vIl	forcefully, by force	[TKDa, TKW]
pIj	often, frequently	[TKD, TKW, KGT]
pIj­Ha’	seldom, infrequently	[KGT]
qen	recently, a short time ago	[News 1999-03-02]
QIt	slowly	[TKD]
reH	always	[TKD, TKW]
roD	customarily, habitually, regularly	[KGT]
rut	sometimes, occasionally	[TKD, TKW, KGT]
SI­bI’	immediately	[TKDa]
ta­gha’	finally, at last	[News 1999-11-05]
tugh	soon	[TKD]
tlhoS	almost, nearly, virtually, not quite	[KGT]
tlhoy	overly, to an excessive degree, too much	[HQ 8:3]
vaj	so, then, thus, in that case	[TKD, TKW]
wa’­logh	once	[TKD]
wej	not yet	[TKD, TKW]

Most commonly adverbials are come at the very beginning of a sentence (though occasionally an adverbial can be preceded by other stuff, such as a time element). [TKD 5.4, TKDa 6.7]

nom Sop­pu’	They ate quickly.
DaH­jaj nom Sop­pu’	Today they ate quickly.

Adverbials are also quite commonly used as exclamations, and then work sentences in their own right. E.g.: wej Not yet! (Don’t do it yet!), nom Come on! Quickly!, nI­teb Alone! (Do it by yourself!) [TKD 5.4]

And, finally, if an object is topicalized with the -’e’ suffix, then the adverbial can come after the object noun. [TKDa 6.7]

Haq­wI’ yI­Sam	Find the surgeon!
DaH Haq­wI’ yI­Sam	Find the surgeon now!
Haq­wI’­’e’ yI­Sam	Find the surgeon!
Haq­wI’­’e’ DaH yI­Sam	Find the surgeon now!

There are also two special adverbials (jay’ intensely and neH only) that, syntactically, work differently than the rest of the adverbials.¹

Klingon	English	Placement	Source
jay’	intensely (invective)	At the end of a sentence	[TKDa 5.4]
neH	only, merely, just	Follows a verb or noun it modifies	[TKD 5.4, TKW]

jay’ is always placed last in the sentence an has the effect of intensifying it.

tI­bach	Shoot him!
tI­bach jay’	Shoot him, goddamnit!

When neH comes after a verb it has the effect of trivializing it.

vI­qIp­pu’	I hit him.
vI­qIp­pu’ neH	I merely hit him.
Duj yI­Qotlh	Disable the ship!
Duj yI­Qotlh neH	Only disable the ship!

The use of neH in the previous example implies that the ship should be disabled, but not damaged further.²

Alone among the adverbials neH can also be used to modify the meaning of a noun, it then comes after the noun, and means only, alone.

yaS neH	only the officer, the officer alone
jon­ta’ neH	just the engine

Finally adverbials to indicate repetitions are created using a number plus the suffix -logh. This is not limited to the examples in the above list (wa’­logh once and cha’­logh twice), but may be used creatively with any number:

vI­bach­pu’	I shot him/her.
wa’­logh vI­bach­pu’	I shot him/her once.
cha’­logh vI­bach­pu’	I shot him/her twice.
wa’­maH­logh vI­bach­pu’	I shot him/her ten times.
loS’­maH cha’­logh vI­bach­pu’	I shot him/her forty two times.

There are also two adverbials which may be viewed as special cases of -logh. These are pagh­logh zero times, never (from pagh meaning nothing or zero) and Hoch­logh all times, always (from Hoch meaning all or every). These mean the same thing as not never and reH always but carry extra emphasis.

not vI­bach­pu’	I never shot him/her.
pagh­logh vI­bach­pu’	I did never shoot him/her!

And that concludes this quick reference to adverbials.

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¹ There is also the word je (also, and, too) which, although it is considered a conjunction rather than an adverbial, it is used in a similar fashion to neH. Both je and neH can be used after either verbs or nouns (though je follow one or more nouns, and neH a single one).

qa­ma’ vI­bach neH	The only thing I did was to shoot the prisoner.
qa­ma’ neH vI­bach	The prisoner was the only one I shot.
qa­ma’ vI­bach je	I shot the prisoner too.
qa­ma’ ’av­wI’ je vI­bach	I shot the prisoner and the guard.

² When neH only is used with he or she as subject, it can be hard to distinguish it from neH want. Extra pronouns or puctuation can then usually be used to clarify the meaning.

qa­ma’ vI­bach vI­neH	I want to shoot the prisoner.
qa­ma’ vI­bach neH	He wants me to shoot the prisoner or I only shot the prisoner.
qa­ma’ vI­bach neH jIH	I only shot the prisoner.
qa­ma’ vI­bach neH ghaH or qa­ma’ vI­bach, neH	He wants me to shoot the prisoner