Newsgroup message of July 19, 1999

Subject: where do you live? (from Marc)

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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).

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