tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Mar 30 03:32:42 1994

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KBTP: Marcan vocabulary



>From: [email protected] (Nick NICHOLAS)
>Date: Wed, 30 Mar 94 16:34:36 EST

>Hu'tegh! nuq ja' [email protected] jay'?

Just a quick comment...

>=>baptise: tay'mo' vISay'moH
>=[...]
>=>unclean spirit: qa' lam
>=Interesting you're assuming the metaphors of "clean" and "dirty" meaning
>="morally good" and "morally bad" can also apply to Klingons. Klingons don't
>=necessarily equate {lam} metaphorically with "unholy".

>On baptise, the man was dunking people in the water, so taymo' (correctly
>spelt in the text) is fair enough. As for dirty spirit, I know that was
>a literal translation of a Hebrew term, and I don't think the Greeks would
>have made that association either. Should this become quvHa'?

I think so.  The Hebrew term in question doesn't refer to dirt or lack of
hygiene, that's a different root.  This is specifically a ritual
"impurity", no more associated with mud on the face than the English
"unclean" is with "dirty".  "quvHa'" actually carries the connotations
quite well to my ear (for inexplicable reasons, even better than "quv" does
for "holy").

>=>cast out (ekba'llein): vIDoHmoH
>=Maybe {ghIm}.

>exile? I'm reluctant on this one.

I think I like ghIm better.

>=>curse: naDHa'
>=We also have {qIch}.

>Yeah, but "condemn" is not what the ungrateful son can be said to do to
>his parents, or Jesus to the fig leaf.

You sure?  It's awfully close.  And don't neglect "vaq", even though it
seems far away. 

>=>unchaste: naghHa'
>=Huh?! {nagh} means "stone, rock". I don't think it's quite the word you're
>=looking for.

>nagh is the most popular rendering of the Klingon for "fuck" (let's drop
>this "mate with" euphemy) in PK. It certainly, reportedly, doesn't sound
>anything like nga'chuq of veS QonoS fame. (I really should listen to that
>tape again some day.) This verb, too, got a lot of mileage in _Much Ado_.

Then why the "-Ha'"?  For doing it badly?

>=>sigh: tlhuHchu'
>=I don't think I'd understand this one without a translation either.

Maybe "Dalmo' tlhuH" for sigh of boredom, 'oy'mo' tlhuH for sigh of pain...
nobody ever said you could translate the same word the same everywhere.

>Nick.


~mark



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