tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Sep 27 10:50:30 1998
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Re: Translation Needed
On Sat, 26 Sep 1998, 1st Lieutenant Scott L. Inman wrote:
>Are the following translations for the following curse words correct?:
Ah, I see you've got a copy of the ST: Klingon! CD (or KCD). You've got most
of these right, except for:
>1.) veQ
> Garbage
>2.) quI tuq
> (Unknown)
Not a curse. <qul tuq> "House of Fire" is the name of a Klingon opera about
the House of SepIch.
>3.) Qa'Hom
> Little Animal
>4.) tu'HomI'rah
> Something Useless
tu'HomI'raH
>5.) DenIb Qetlh
> Denebian Slime Devil
DenIb Qatlh
>6.) petaQ
> Insult
Paramount's favorite insult!
>7.) QI'yah
> (Unknown)
QI'yaH - a vulgar expletive, it's "one of the strongest, most foul
expressions in the Klingon language. It defies adequate translation." (Okrand
on KCD)
>8.) HuH
> Slime
>9.) qoIt
> Idiot, or Fool
qoH
>10a.) nuchpu'
> Coward
>10b.) nuchpu'mey
> Cowards
nuch (singular), nuchpu' (plural). <-mey> is used for things, not people.
>11.) yIntagh
> Curse
Another curse that "doesn't have an adequate translation" (Okrand on KCD).
>12.) verengan Ha'DIbah
> Ferengi Dog
verengan Ha'DIbaH (literally "Ferengi animal"). Note that there is no lower
case "h" in Klingon; it's *always* written "H".
>And the following phrase (though not a curse)?:
>
>qeylIss MinDu'
> In the eyes of Kahless
qeylIS mInDu' "The Eyes of Kahless" - it's the name of a Klingon dice game.
Note that <mInDu'> "eyes" has the plural suffix <-Du'>, used for body parts.
Again, there is no "s" in Klingon, only capital "S". OTOH, "m" is always
written lower case, never capitalized. In Okrand's system, the lower case
letters are pronounced exactly as they are in English, while the upper case
letters are pronounced differently, and he uses capitalization to alert you.
Note that this system is rigidly adhered to, even in the first word of a
sentence or proper names, which has caused no end of confusion for the
editors at Simon & Schuster/Pocket Books, who publish the Star Trek books,
tapes and CDs.
>I would also request that someone help me in putting ALL of these words
>and the phrase in a sentence. Smeone has accused me of something I did
>not do and I intend to use these words on that person whether or not
>they understand tlhIgan. If you respond, please, and I cannot emphasize
>this enough, PLEASE write back to me privately.
Well, these are expletives (stand alone swear words) and epithets (insulting
names you call people) and I'm not sure you could use all of them in one
grammatical sentence. However, the one or two times we've seen elaborate
swearing (especially Picard cursing Gov. Vagh in TNG "The Mind's Eye"), it
appears that one merely strings three or four choice expressions together as
you lean close and look your target squarely in the eyes.
--
Voragh "Grammatici certant et adhuc sub judice
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons lis est." Horace (Ars Poetica)