tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Jan 09 08:10:40 1998

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Re: Phantom words in KGT

: ja' ter'eS:
: >I've noticed a few words in the dictionary of KGt which I can't
: >find anywhere else.  I don't recall seeing the word {mebpa'mey} 'hotel',
: >for example, used in any previous work or in KGT itself.
: 
: I wonder about this word.  It's got a {-mey} on it, but it's defined as
: a singular "hotel".  Is it an inherently plural noun that is grammatically
: treated as singular?
: 
: -- ghunchu'wI'

Why would you asume that? The -mey marks it as a plural noun. It just looks
like Klingons use a plural word ("guest rooms"), while Anglophiles use a
singular ("hotel"). Pity Okrand didn't use it in context, though. You simply
adjust your translation to follow the grammar of your own language.

This sort of thing happens frequently between languages. In Russian, for
example, the word for "money" is the grammatically plural *den'gi* which
takes plural modifiers: *moi den'gi* and and the plural declension: *mnogo
deneg*. In fact, the word does not exist in a singular form. If there ever
were a Russian edition of TKD (not totally far-fetched as I've heard that
Glen Proechel was teaching some Russians Klingon while he was living in
Khabarovsk), no one would assume from the following glossary listing:
          Huch      den'gi (n)
that {Huch} was grammatically plural in Klingon.

Voragh

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