tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Nov 07 07:30:54 1994
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Re: "Kiss"?
- From: "Mark E. Shoulson" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: "Kiss"?
- Date: Mon, 7 Nov 1994 10:30:43 -0500
- In-Reply-To: <[email protected]> (message from Joel Anderson on Mon, 7 Nov 1994 09:01:17 -0500)
>Date: Mon, 7 Nov 1994 09:01:17 -0500
>Originator: [email protected]
>From: Joel Anderson <[email protected]>
>Anyone have a word for that? Top of my shiney bald head,
>I come up with: wuSHot [wuS=lip, Hot=touch].
>Just a thought.
Unless Maltz just hasn't gotten around to telling us, I doubt there's a
simple word for it. After all, what's the simple English translation of
the Sanskrit word "an~jali"? It's a perfectly simple concept, certainly as
simple as "kiss", but the only translations I can work out (aside from
"going like this <demonstrates>") involve stuff like "touching the palms
together in front of the body and moving them towards oneself in a sort of
supplicating gesture." A few syllables extra, no? The gesture just
doesn't exist as a simple concept in the English-speaking culture.
I've seen translations involving "chop" (maybe wuSDaj chop if it's the lips
that are being kissed... something very Klingonish about that!), and I can
deal with that. If you need to describe the actions of Terrans, you're
going to have to say something like "muSHa'chuqmo' wuSchaj HotchuqmoH" or
something equally longwinded, even as you'd have to say "He touched his
palms together in greeting/supplication/whatever" when describing someone
making an an~jali, instad of simply "an~jalim akarot." Lnguages just don't
translate words for words.
Oh, and "*wuSHot" is a noun-verb compound, something we are not told we can
do in Klingon.
~mark