tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jul 12 06:57:38 2004

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SkyBox pIqaD explained: introduction

MorphemeAddict ([email protected]) [KLI Member] [Hol taghwI']

In a message dated 2004-07-11 11:12:04 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
[email protected] writes:

> The cards use Okuda's characters (there are about 10 of them).  Most of them
> are just random characters.  A couple of cards have exactly the same "text,"
> even though the Klingon and English are completely different.
> 
> In at least one instance (I haven't checked them all for this), the Okuda
> characters have been mapped to letters in the Klingon version of the text.
> S8 is one of these.  It's still nonsense, though: since there are only 10
> characters, several sounds are mapped to the same character, and I think the
> mapping is inconsistent.  And multiple-letter characters in the romanized
> transcription like {tlh} are represented with multiple characters.  Whoever
> put together the Klingon character text clearly wasn't a Klingon speaker
> (nor was he Okuda).
> 
> SuStel
> 
Okay, since you give a rough description of the fake pIqaD on the cards, I 
won't start at the beginning.

The first 12 SkyBox cards (SP1, SP2, SP3; S7, S8, S9; S13, S14, S15; S19, 
S20, S21) all have text in what you call Okuda characters.  The next four cards 
(S25, S26, S27; S31) have only token characters.  (I haven't seen S32 or S33, 
but I expect them to have no real text.)  The text of cards S13, S14, S15 
exactly match S9, S8, S7.  The headings of S13 and S14 are the same, as are the 
headings of SP3 and S7.

The mapping you mentioned is consistent.  It also seems to have no 
correlation to real pIqaD.  
I numbered the (exactly) 10 symbols 0 through 9, in rough order of complexity 
of shape.  Two additional symbols, an upward-pointing triangle and a 
downward-pointing triangle, are used for punctuation, but their use is not consistent. 
 To see how I mapped these 10 symbols, look at S20.  The heading on the text 
side is 9841207.  The top line on the picture side is 031965.  One to four 
English letters or symbols are mapped to these 10 symbols thus:

0  n
1  q/Q  u  (k)  initial ['], for which I use ["]
2  c  e
3  b  j  t
4  p  (f)
5  h/H  r
6  i/I  s/S
7  m  w
8  d/D  g  o  '
9  a  l  v  y

ch, gh, ng, and tlh are all mapped as if they were English, e.g. ch = c + h.  
No distinction is made between upper and lower case letters; {q} and {Q} are 
both mapped to '1'.  This also makes 'ngh' ambiguous: {n}+{gh} or {ng}+{H}.

With this mapping, SP1, SP2, SP3, and S21 still look like a random collection 
of letters.  There may be another mapping that makes sense of them, but I 
doubt it.  

Starting with S7, though, the situation changes.  The heading still seems to 
be random, but the text matches the Klingon text of the card (although not 
perfectly).

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