tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon May 19 09:35:30 2014
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Re: [Tlhingan-hol] tlhoy'
[email protected]:
> While updating my lexicon, I stumbled into the word {tlhoy'}. The
> interesting thing that I had not noticed earlier is that {reD} is used
> for the exterior surface of a wall separating "inside" from "outside",
> and {tlhoy'} is used to describe the inside surface of any wall (an
> interior wall, or the interior surface of an exterior wall).
>
> But territorial walls are called {tlhoy'}.
>
> This suggests to me that any territorial wall is perceived to hold out
> anyone on the other side; that the whole world on this side of the wall
> is considered to be "inside". Even if the people on the other side of the
> wall built it.
>
> Or perhaps that it is thought that a wall built by someone else is
> intended to keep us "inside", so if we want to be free of our
> constraints, we necessarily have to take down that wall, so that we can
> get "out", even if the "out" we are seeking to escape to is someone
> else's fortress.
For those who haven't read it, here's Okrand' post from startrek.klingon (12/7/1998) that introduced these terms:
***************************************************************************
From: Marc Okrand
Newsgroups: startrek.klingon
Date: Mon, 7 Dec 1998 00:55:46 -0500
Subject: Re: walls
TPO [DloraH] wrote ...
>I'm working on a literary piece that makes many references to a wall or
>walls. Any ideas how I can handle this? (recast, metaphor, ...)
Actually, there are several words referring to "wall":
An interior wall (such as a wall separating your living room from your kitchen) is a {tlhoy'}.
An exterior wall (that is, a wall which separates the inside of a building from the outside) is a {reD}.
For the interior side of an exterior wall, it is quite common to use {tlhoy'}, but the phrase {pa' reD}, literally "room's exterior wall" ... is also heard, referring to the wall in a room which faces outside (as opposed to the other walls in the room whose other sides are still indoors).
The wall around a city is a {yergho}, which is apparently derived from {yer} "domain, holdings, territory" plus {gho} "circle."
A wall which divides a territory into parts (such as the Berlin Wall) is also called a {tlhoy'}, even though neither side of it is the interior of a structure. On occasion, for clarity, such a wall is termed a {chevwI' tlhoy'} "separator wall") or a {pIn tlhoy'}, literally "boss wall," presumably dating back to a time when each subterritory had a specific person in charge.
The phrase {pa' tlhoy'} "room's interior wall" is also heard from time to time, but usually only when it is necessary to distinguish the "interior wall" sense of {tlhoy'} from the "separator wall" sense.
A {tlhoy'} "interior wall" need not be vertical. In a multistory structure, the stories are separated by what Klingon architects and builders call a {tlhoy' SaS} "horizontal wall". The side of this "wall" which is the bottom of the upper story is the {rav} "floor"; the side which is the top of the lower story is the {rav'eq} "ceiling" (based on {rav} "floor" plus {'eq}, an element otherwise unknown (there is no evidence it is connected to {'eq} "be early").
{rav} "floor" is also used for the floor of a room on ground level (or a basement floor, for that matter), even though there is no corresponding {rav'eq} and no {tlhoy' SaS}.
Similarly, though in general {rav'eq} "ceiling" refers to the ceiling of a room that has a room above it, it may also be used for the ceiling of a room on the top floor, even though there is no corresponding {rav} and no {tlhoy' SaS}. On occasion, though, the ceiling of the top floor is called
{pa' beb}, literally "room's roof" ... The term {beb} refers to the covering on top of a structure.
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--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons
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