tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Apr 30 12:32:31 2002
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Re: Klingon Cursing
"Worf" asks:
>How do you spell the Klingon curse that is pronounced like "koot'vakk"?
Qu'vatlh
Okrand explains in "Conversational Klingon" that:
"This is something you might hear someone say in moments of extreme
anger. Be concerned if you hear it."
And in "The Klingon Dictionary (p.178) he tells us:
"The invective {va} is actually just a shortened form of {Qu'vatlh}."
When Capt. Picard failed to convince Governor Vagh that the Federation
wasn't supplying weapons to Kriosian rebels on the Klingon colony world,
Vagh shouted: "You speak the lies of a tah-keck!" Picard calmly leaned
forward and replied, "Qu'vatlh guy'cha b'aka!" Vagh complimented him,
saying: "You swear well, Picard. You must have Klingon blood in you." (TNG
"The Mind's Eye")
(N.B. those spellings came from Paramount's closed captions. Their
tlhIngan Hol spellings are: taHqeq, Qu'vatlh, ghuy'cha', baQa'.)
>and also, how is it you say that there is more than one Klingon?
I'm not sure I understand. Do you want to know the plural form of "Klingon":
cha' tlhInganpu' "two Klingons"
wej tlhInganpu' "three Klingons"
tlhInganpu' law' "many Klingons"
The plural suffix {-pu'} is optional and can be omitted when it's clear
from context that you're talking about more than one:
cha' tlhIngan "two Klingons"
wej tlhIngan "three Klingons"
tlhIngan law' "many Klingons"
If you're asking how do you call more than one Klingon a {Qu'vatlh}, the
answer is "You don't." {Qu'vatlh} is an expletive, not an epithet; it's
something you say when angry (e.g. "Damn it!"), not a name you call someone
(e.g. "You bastard!"). In the above scene from "The Mind's Eye", for
example, {Qu'vatlh, ghuy'cha', baQa'} is a string of three expletives,
while {taHqeq} is an epithet.
Now, if you're asking how to make an epithet plural, the answer is "We're
not sure". Okrand has never given us an example. For instance, the most
famous Klingon epithet is {petaQ} - which Paramount spells variously as
p'tahk, pahtk, pahtak, p'tak, etc. Most of us assume that the plural form
is *{petaQpu'}, using the {-pu'} suffix you normally use for
people. Again, since the plural suffix is optional, you can usually omit
it (and thereby avoid the problem) with no loss of clarity. E.g.:
petaQ SoH!
"You're a p'tak! You p'tak!"
petaQ tlhIH!
"You're all p'taks! All of you are p'taks!"
>Something like "Klingon Poop?"
We don't know the Klingon word for excrement, if that's what you're asking.
Qapla'! pe'vIl mu'qaDmey tIbach! (Curse well!)
--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons