Bodo to Klingon Latin: the verb prefix identifies both sides of an action
The person affected is part of the prefix choice
Bodo bi-ɯ aŋ-khɯu liŋhordɯŋ describes a third person calling the speaker in Basumatary’s examples. The affected person is distinguished by a case-marked personal expression. Klingon can encode a combination of actor and object through a prefix on the verb, so choosing a prefix merely meaning first person would not be enough.
The Klingon Language Institute contrasts qa-, I acting on singular you, with cho-, singular you acting on me. These reverse the participant relationship. A Bodo source about calling the listener and a source about the listener calling the writer must not receive an identical prefix simply because both involve the same two people.
The important question is directional: who performs the action, and who is affected? The physical position of a Bodo personal suffix does not indicate where that information should appear inside a Klingon form. Select the target combination from the complete source relationship.
We acting on one object differs from we acting on several
KLI distinguishes wI- for we acting on a singular third-person object from DI- for we acting on plural third-person objects. Bodo zɯŋ identifies we, but that alone does not establish the number of things or people affected by the action.
If a Bodo message shifts from the group reading one book to reading several books, the target may need a different prefix even though the actor remains the same. Conversely, adding another actor does not by itself make the object plural. Track the group doing the action separately from the quantity affected.
KLI notes that Klingon noun plural suffixes can be omitted when number is recoverable elsewhere. An unchanged-looking noun is consequently not sufficient evidence that a Bodo plural meaning disappeared. The verb prefix or context may carry that distinction. This makes checking the prefix especially useful in a compact translated request.
A property description has its own word order
Bodo kinship expressions such as ada identify a particular relative, including an owner. If the source then describes that relative’s height or age, the Klingon property construction must distinguish describing a noun from asserting a property.
KLI gives tlhIngan woch for a tall Klingon. An adjectivally used property verb follows the noun, whereas the same type of verb functioning as a predicate precedes its subject. A target word sequence that contains both the person and the property can therefore change meaning when their order changes.
The Latin writing system used in these lessons preserves forms such as wI- and DI- rather than normalising them to ordinary English capitalisation. The apostrophe is also part of Klingon spellings such as ngo’, used for old as opposed to new. These written distinctions should remain intact when copying the result. For this direction, a reliable target preserves the Bodo actor-object relationship, the independent number of affected participants, and the difference between a relative described by a property and a statement asserting that property of them.
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