Bulgarian to Klingon in Latin script: a description can become a clause
The ship is big and the big ship are different structures
Bulgarian Корабът е голям means “The ship is big,” while големият кораб is the noun phrase “the big ship.” The adjective changes its position and carries the article in the second expression. Klingon likewise distinguishes the complete statement tIn Duj from the noun phrase Duj tIn, but without reproducing Bulgarian adjective agreement or a separate equivalent of е.
The Klingon Language Institute explains that words such as tIn, “be big,” are stative verbs. Before the subject noun, the verb makes a statement; after the noun, it functions attributively. Thus the order difference is grammatical. Reversing the words merely to make the result resemble Bulgarian adjective-before-noun order can change a phrase into a sentence.
Two Bulgarian modifiers may require a relative construction
Bulgarian can place several agreeing adjectives before a noun, as in добра нова книга, “a good new book.” Klingon does not simply allow a sequence of two adjectival verbs after the noun. KLI illustrates QaQbogh paq chu', a new book that is good, using a relative suffix on one descriptive verb and the other as an attributive modifier.
The reorganized clause preserves two qualities rather than dropping one. Bulgarian добра and нова visibly share feminine agreement with книга; that agreement is not copied into the Klingon verbs. Instead, the relationship between each quality and the book is expressed through the two different constructions. A longer-looking target phrase can therefore preserve a compact Bulgarian description more accurately than a word-for-word list.
Която does not become an independent Klingon relative pronoun
Bulgarian книгата, която чета means “the book which I am reading.” The relative word която refers back to the feminine noun. Klingon forms relative clauses with the verbal suffix -bogh. KLI’s paq vIlaDtaHbogh identifies the book being read; no separate gendered relative pronoun corresponds to която.
Where both a subject and an object appear explicitly inside a Klingon relative clause, adding -bogh alone may leave the intended head unclear. The noun suffix -'e' can identify which noun is being relativized. Bulgarian agreement on the relative pronoun and its surrounding syntax offer different clues. The target must preserve whether the passage refers to a person doing something or to the thing acted upon.
The Latin letters carry language-specific information
The Latin-script option uses the romanization associated with Marc Okrand’s language, rather than a Bulgarian phonetic transcription. Capital letters inside Klingon words are conventional parts of that spelling. An apostrophe can represent a consonant; it is not automatically punctuation to discard at a phrase boundary.
Bulgarian uppercase letters normally contrast with lowercase letters through capitalization conventions rather than the same Klingon sound distinctions. Applying Bulgarian sentence-case habits to tIn or replacing all internal capitals with lowercase can therefore damage the target spelling. The suffix boundaries used in this guide explain the grammar; the written output still needs the connected Klingon word forms. Choosing Latin script makes those forms readable in romanization without making Bulgarian word order or punctuation rules applicable to them.
Language references