tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Aug 09 04:38:52 1993
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
The history of the Klingon language
- From: [email protected]
- Subject: The history of the Klingon language
- Date: 9 Aug 93 11:35:03 GMT
- Priority: normal
Most languages have a history, and likely this includes Klingon. `pu'` is
recorded in these at first sight unconnected roles:-
pu' N phaser
pu' NS2 pl_sentient
pu' VS7 perfective
What lies behind this in the long unrecorded past of the Klingon language,
back to times where pre-industrial Klingons had no idea of space or of space
travel or even of guns? I imagined a scenario where in timber forest areas on
Qo'noS aboriginal Klingon forest hunter tribes were tolerated as the easiest
way to keep numbers of tree-damaging wild animals under control. They keep, as
well as a pre-industrial culture, an almost unaltered form of ancient Klingon
language from the long past when the agglutinated suffixes of Klingon were
separate words used in far freer order, their relative roles distinguished by
case endings which in modern Klingon have long since vanished as long history
turned *`peuko-` into `pu'`, an animal-hide-clad tribe assembled with spears
for war or hunt into a uniformed squad armed with phasers. From the idea of
"<whole> assembled tribe" came its use as verbal perfective suffix, when the
ancient verb conjugation endings dropped as military clippedness of speech
became a common affectation and ate away the case etc endings of words; and
also e.g. *`beqopeuko-` > `beqpu'` = "the crew, all the crewmen together" as
distinct from *`beqomeikyu-` > `beqmey` = "a number of crewmen, some crewmen"
(c.f. *`naghumeikyu-` > `naghmey` = "stones", *`miiko-` > `mi'` = "number")
(doubled vowel = long), a distinction between `pu'` and `mey` long retained
until some time later `pu'` intruded on the role of `mey` with sentient nouns
and restricted it to "scattered all about". Also, whatever intermediate stage
between *`peuko-` and `pu'` was spoken by early Klingon scientists and
inventors got a more general use for "set", "assembly", including the bulky
complicated apparatus needed to research into the at first unwanted and
dangerous laboratory and workshop phenomenon of "phasering" until it could be
produced in a controlled manner and used as a tool and weapon; after other
words took over for "set, assembly", `pu'` remained for "phaser" only - at
least in the Klingon that we have, which is spacemen's talk.
The all-plural also intruded into the role of general plural in *`kya-` =
"to shoot in volley", *`kyaayu-` = "volley of spears or arrows" > `cha` =
spaceman's general plural of "photon torpedo"; we do not know whether `cha`
has completely replaced `pengmey` in other occupational variants such as
diver's Klingon where `peng` = "torpedo for a diver to ride on" (and "photon
torpedo" = some word such as `loghmay'peng` if he ever needs to mention one).
When ancient and modern meet, and the forest tribes see or get hold of
phasers, they sometimes call them `puu-` taken from the modern language, but
more often `tikhanukhu-` = `tiHnuH` = "ray weapon" or "lightning weapon" and
sometimes think that they are a small version of what their gods cause weather
lightning with. Phaser recharging is expensive and costs them many animal
hides and other forest products each time, so they tend to use them for
emergency only e.g. if a big wounded or cornered animal turns on hunters, and
even now occasionally to fire at clouds in rituals trying to cause rain.
The history of `pu'` = "phaser" may be paralleled in `beH` = noun "rifle" :
`X-beH` = (of device) "be ready to X", as if `beH` = "rifle" < *`bekhwo-` =
"(weapon armed and) readied (for action)" < *'bekha-' = "get ready"
(transitive), a usage that came in when invention of cartridges and magazines
meant that guns at last could be <ready> for action at all times.
However, I see no connection in this coincidence in form:-
Du' N farm
Du' NS2 pl_bodypart
(except to cause agricultural irrelevancies in Klingon -> English parser
output!). Likely `Du'` is a disused word for "natural pair", since body parts
often occur in pairs: c.f. the intrusion in Russian of the Common Slavonic
dual '-a' into plural rather than vice versa in plural of body parts.