tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Jul 21 08:12:55 2004

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Re: Klingon WOTD: val (v)

Steven Boozer ([email protected]) [KLI Member] 

>This is the Klingon Word Of The Day for Wednesday, July 21, 2004.
>
>Klingon word:   val
>Part of Speech: verb
>Definition:     be clever, smart, intelligent

As used in canon:

   val; Huy' rur
   clever as an eyebrow KGT

As discussed:

   This verb [{SIj}] literally means "slash, slit (with a blade)". When
   used in its slang sense, it does not take an object: {bISIj} ("You are
   insightful, you have a keen mind"; literally, "You slash"). Nonslang
   counterparts are {val} ("be clever, smart") and {'ong} ("be cunning,
   sly").  [KGT p.164]

Cf. also {po'} "be expert, be skilled" and the slang term {chong} "be 
profound, be thorough".

>Additional Notes: Opposite of {QIp}.

"be stupid"

Cf. also {jIv} "be ignorant".

SPECULATION ALERT....

{val} *might* be an element in the Klingon female names Valkris {valQIS} 
and Valeris.

Before anyone complains that in ST6 Valeris was a Vulcan, J.M. Dillard's 
ST6 novelization explains that her mother T'Paal named her Valeris after 
one of the honored female heroes of the Klingons as a sign of good 
will.  Her parents had both served in the Vulcan Diplomatic Corps and had 
been stationed on Zorakis, a planet bordering on Klingon 
space.  Unfortunately, it didn't work; Zorakis became the site of a 
massacre by Klingon "renegades" several months before the Organian Peace 
Treaty, when T'Paal was killed while making unofficial peace overtures to 
the Klingons.  Afterwards, her father Sessl began to go mad and encouraged 
young Valeris' very un-Vulcan hatred of the Klingons.  Thus her involvement 
in the plot to assassinate Chancellor Gorkon and his daughter Azetbur.

(OK, so it's semi-canonical!  At the time ST6 was released, there were no 
official Vulcan names beginning with /V/ so Dillard's explanation made 
sense within the context of the movie - "Hey! Why doesn't her name begin 
with /T'P.../?" - and may even have been suggested in the early version of 
the script that she based her novelization on.  Since then, we've met or 
heard of one female (Ambassador V'Lar [ENT "Shadows of P'Jem"]), and four 
males (Ensign Vorik/Vorick [VOY "Pon Farr" et al.], Captain Vanik [ENT 
"Breaking the Ice"], scientist Velik [ENT "Strange New World"] and Captain 
Voris [ENT "Impulse"]).



-- 
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons

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