tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Oct 07 10:16:30 2002
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Re: Federation: <<yuQjIjDIvI'>> or <<yuQjIjQa'>>
Se'noj wrote:
>I was looking at my TKD, and I think I may have worked out why there are
>two words for the Untied Federation of Planets. They both start <<yuQjIj>>,
>or planets that cooperate, and one ends with <<DIvI'>>, or Federation, and
>the other ends in <<Qa'>>, which is defined as a type of animal. This makes
>me think that <<yuQjIjQa'>> is derogatory, where as <<yuQjIjDIvI'>> might
>be used in more formal texts and communications. Any ideas?
AFAIK Okrand has never explained the difference. The only thing I can add
to this is that {yuQjIjDIvI'} is listed in the English-to-Klingon side,
while {yuQjIjQa'} is listed in the Klingon-to-English side of the glossary,
which may or may not support your idea: If {yuQjIjQa'} is indeed the more
widespread Klingon term, that may be why it's listed in the
Klingon-to-English side because that is the form a Klingon would look
up. The more neutral, and diplomatic, form {yuQjIjDIvI'} is listed in the
side Federation speakers would use!
{Qa'} appears as a morpheme in the words {baQa'} "b'aka (expl! a general
invective)" and {majQa'} "Well done! Very good!" as well as the animal
names {Qa'}, {Qa'Da'}, {QaHom} and {Qa'raj}. (Hmm... either animals or
exclamations.)
Of course, exolinguistic speculation is fun, but the real life explanation
is bound to be less interesting: either it was the result of a typo
(Okrand's or the publisher's), an actor's mistake, or Okrand inadvertently
translated the term twice because he forgot that he had already translated
it once before. Okrand usually tries to provide some sort of contextual
difference after someone points them out to him. A good example of the
last scenario is {jIj} and {yeq} "cooperate" - {jIj} is given the
additional gloss "be cooperative" in KGT.
--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons