tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Oct 23 13:24:15 1998
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RE: 'ach
: lab K'ryntes:
:
: > TKD p.55 'ach is sometimes shortened to 'a.
: > Does it matter when? Are they simply interchangeable? I have to ask
: > because when the dictionary says things are "possible" or "sometimes
: > occur" I'm not sure if that's a green light or a red light.
:
: They are completely interchangeable. In my experience, <'ach> is almost
: universally used in written Klingon, but <'a> is used almost as much as
: <'ach> in conversation. Note that this says nothing about how Klingons use
: them, just about how we (humans who have never met a Klingon) use them.
Okrand himself always uses {'ach}. AFAIK, only Azetbur said {'a} once:
notlh veS... 'a tugh manotlhchoH je maH (??)
War is obsolete... as we are in danger of becoming. ST6
The end of the line is a bit problematic, but the {'a tugh ...} part is quite
clear.
: Similar interchangeable pairs are <HISlaH> and <HIja'> for "yes"
{HISlaH} was only used once by Valkris:
HISlaH, jawwI'.
I have, my lord. ST3
: and <SaD> and <SanID> for "thousand".
{SaD} is preferred over {SanID} on CK. I couldn't find any examples of
{SanID}. Okrand explains in TKD (p.53):
Higher numbers are formed by adding special number-forming elements
to the basic set of numbers (1-9)... Both {SaD} and {SanID} are equally
correct for "thousand", and both are used with roughly equal frequency.
It is not known why this number alone has two variants.
I wonder if one of the ST3 actors routinely said this when Okrand was tutoring
them on the set, or even on film in a line eventually cut from the final
version.
Yet another variant is {joH} and {jaw} "lord, lady". This is another
Valkris-ism:
HISlaH, jawwI'.
I have, my lord. ST3
Qapla' jawwI' bangwI' je.
Success my lord and my love. ST3
which Okrand explains in KGT (p.198):
... {joHwI'} ("my Lord, my Lady"). This title also has an alternate
form, {jaw}, which is used from time to time with no known difference
in meaning or connotation, though {joH} is heard far more frequently.
As you can see, these variants originated when an actor mispronounced or
misremembered the word in one of the movies. But Okrand, clever man that he
is, took advantage of this "evidence" and treated them as legitimate variants,
adding to the naturalistic feel of tlhIngan Hol. Both are perfectly
acceptable, even if one is less common in the corpus than the other, so feel
free to pick the one you prefer.
: pagh
: Beginners' Grammarian
_________________________________________________________________________
Voragh "Grammatici certant et adhuc sub judice
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons lis est." Horace (Ars Poetica)