This unit introduces a number of Klingon animals and practices the -mey plural suffix for animals and other things that are not body parts and are not capable of using language.

This unit also introduces possessive suffixes.

Possessive suffixes

Remember that to specify one person or thing that possesses another person or thing, the two nouns (or noun phrases) are simply presented next to each other with the first noun (or noun phrase) indicating the possessor and the second noun (or noun phrase) indicating the possession:

HoD Duj the captain's ship
tlhIngan SoS the Klingon's mother

When you don't want to list the specific possessor, but just want to refer to them, English would use a possessive pronoun, such as my, your, his, their etc.

In Klingon these relationships are marked with type 4 noun suffixes.

Klingon distinguishes here between possessions which are beings capable of using languages (those which have their plural in -pu' and use pronouns ghaH and chaH) from all other possessions (those which have their plural in -mey or -Du' and use pronouns 'oH and bIH).

If the possession is not a being or not capable of using language, such as an inanimate object, an animal, a body part, etc., then the following possessive suffixes are used:

-wIj my
-lIj your (belonging to one person)
-Daj his, her, its
-maj our
-raj your (belonging to several people)
-chaj their

If the possession is a being capable of using language (e.g. SoSwI' my mother), some, but not all, of those endings end in a glottal stop ' instead of a j—e.g. -lI' instead of -lIj. Those Endings are taught later, under "Talk about Family".

Since you have now learned many of the possessive suffixes, remember that the possessive suffixes are not generally used with area nouns. In ta' Hol we don't say *tlhopwIjDaq or *'emlIjDaq (though speakers from Sakrej region would)—instead ta' Hol speakers would use pronouns and say, jIH tlhopDaq in front of me and SoH 'emDaq behind you.

Preview of -bogh

You will see the -bogh relative-clause verb suffix used in this unit. It is used here to mean, thing that as in puvlaHbogh qoq a robot that can fly. For now memorize these words as a unit and the specifics of how to use the suffix will be taught in detail later on.