tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Oct 22 14:11:47 1998
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Re: drillmusciangroup
: [Voragh] wrote:
: > DIvI'may'Duj Federation battle cruiser
: >
: > yuQjIjDIvI' United Federation of Planets (or)
: > yuQjIjQa' United Federation of Planets
: >
: > although there are no known nouns {jIj} or {Qa'} -- well, there is the
: > vicious {Qa'} animal, but this {Qa'} is clearly different.
: >
: > 'ejyo'waw' starbase
: >
: > "The syllable {'ej} also occurs in {'ejyo'} 'Starfleet'. There are,
: > however, no known Klingon words {'ej}, {Do'}, or {yo'} that have
: > anything to do with Starfleet, starships, the Federation, or space
: > vehicles of any kind. It is quite likely ... an Old Klingon word
: > ... that is used nowhere except in the noun {'ejDo'}. Of course,
: > without further study, that remains pure conjecture." (TKD p.20)
:
: None of these examples involve Okrand combining three normal
: nouns to form a new single noun. I do not think they provide
: good evidence that it is recommended that people commonly
: combine three nouns into one. I do not believe this practice is
: likely to make your words easy to understand.
:
: charghwI' 'utlh
I agree that {yuQjIjDIvI'}, {yuQjIjQa'} and {'ejyo'waw'} are strange --
possibly containing Old Klingon nouns not extant in the "modern" language --
which is why I commented on them. Many Okrandian compounds seem to contain
obsolete noun forms, such as our old friend {QongDaq} "bed".
However, {DIvI'may'Duj} "Federation battle cruiser" does consist of three
fairly common nouns: {DIvI'} "Federation" + {may'} "battle" + {Duj} "ship".
({may'Duj}, of course, also exists as a compound by itself.)
Not that it makes these threefold nouns any less rare, or such
monstrosities as
Okrand's own example {DIvI'may'DujmeyDaq} "at/to the Federation battle
cruisers" (TKD) any less difficult to understand at first glance. Can anyone
think of another one?
Voragh