tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Jul 19 01:18:48 1996

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  (0) TKW p85 has {ghIj qet jaghmeyjaj} (5 syllables) = "may your enemies run
with fear". Here Okrand says that, as sometimes with proverbs, the grammar is
nonstandard and would normally be {jaghmeylI' DaghLIjjaj, qetjaj jaghmeylI'}
(11 syllables). (The 'l' which I uppercase here was omitted in the book.) This
seems to show that long ago the optative suffix {-jaj} was a separate word.
The two apparent verbs together may date back to a time of long-vanished case
and similar endings to sort word relationships out, and/or a time when there
were far fewer homophonies between a verb and a noun with unrelated meanings.
(I wish I could read the scroll that was found in the book "Kahless", to find
what tlhIngan Hol was like over 1500 years ago and how it has changed since!)
If there was a passivizer suffix # (e.g. X ghIj# Y = Y ghIj Y), this could be
{ghIj#ghachmo' qetjaj jaghmeylI'} (9 syllables) "scare - -ed_being - ness -
due_to ...". Or try {ghIjghachvo' qetjaj jaghmeylI'} (8 syllables, 7 if
{ghach} could be omitted (see (12)) "scaring - ness - away_from ...")
  (1) Using sentient suffixes with animals etc, e.g. {targhpu'wI'} rather than
{targhmeywIj}: is it absolutely wrong, or does it merely imply a tendency to
treat pet animals as having personal rights etc like people (like some people
do in the real world, e.g. calling a dog "he" rather than "it")? Likewise e.g.
{naDev verghDaq ghaH DujwI'} rather than {naDev verghDaq 'oH DujwIj} = "my
ship is in dock here.": whether or not my ship's computer is sentient. Thus
e.g. {batlhwI'} = my [treated as sentient] sword" may look strange: but old
Germanic warriors on Earth often gave their swords personal names.
  (2) TKD says that the Klingon language information was got from Maltz =
{matlh} who was a prisoner of the Federation; it does not mention Worf, who
thus likely had not yet come along. How did the Federation capture Maltz?
Likely the Earth couple who adopted Worf at age 5 would have needed some way
to learn Klingon, to teach it to Worf as he grew up.
  (3) {ngeHbej} = "cosmos" looks like {ngeH-bej} = "send-watch". The "send"
part may be coincidence; but could "to watch" be genuinely one part of it? If
so, the word would date back from long ago before the Klingons had any idea of
space travel, when the sky and the universe were merely something to look up
at and wonder about at night and imagine gods living up there.
  (4) TKW has {Dol nIvDaq} = "in a greater whole". Is thus transferring the
noun suffix {-Daq} to the verb {nIv} correct or usual?
  (5) TKW p221 said that Kahless conquered worlds. If so, and if the scenario
in the book "Kahless" is treated as canon, then either:-
    (a) the original Kahless must have lived for centuries, or
    (b) the Klingons were mighty quick to develop unaided from pre-industrial
state to building and running space-warships in his lifetime, or
    (c) after Kahless came to power and long before he died, unrecorded space
aliens came to Qo'noS and quickly unadvisedly industrialized and
scientificized the Klingons and brought them into the space age, not knowing
how big and dangerous a lion they were letting loose among the star systems.
  (6) The TKW proverb {ram meqmey} can be parsed 2 ways: it could mean
"motives are insignificant" (as TKW says), or it could mean "the night of
motives".
  (7) The names Kozak and Azetbur in TKW make me think that some nonstandard
modern Klingon dialect or language indeed has the {z} sound. If so, there
would be a modern or disused pIqaD letter for {z}, and perhaps for other
sounds which are not found in Okrandian tlhIngan Hol. "Kahless" p216 has a
modern Klingon named Muuda with a probable long vowel. Dropped vowels in
transcriptions like "p'tahk" = {petaQ}, "d'k tahg" = {Daqtagh} seem to show
that some Klingons pronounced some unstressed vowels very weakly.
  (8) The book "Kahless" says that the scroll was written in a flowing hand.
pIqaD as usually known can hardly be handwritten in a flowing manner; was the
scroll written in a different older alphabet? Or is there a cursive and less
jagged form of pIqaD used when large amounts of it have to be handwritten?
  (9) A "Star Trek Encyclopedia" that I have lists two Klingon sentences used
in the episide "Reunion": {jIH dok} = "my blood", said my one partner to the
other at marriage, and {maj dok} = "our blood" said in reply thus establishing
the marriage. (a) I can find no word {Doq} or {DoQ) for "blood"; {Doq} means
"be orange or red", but the "Kahless" book says that Klingons' blood is
lavender-coloured; (b) the grammar is nonstandard. Do I treat it as canon and
say that the speakers spoke a nonstandard dialect? Or do I reject it?
  (10) Re (9): for e.g. "my ship", is {jIH Duj} with separate pronoun
acceptable as an emphatic (= "MY!! ship"), leaving {dujwIj} as non-emphatic?
  (11) Re (9), how far must difficulties and contradictions etc go before we
have to reject published story matter to simplify matters? E.g. the preface to
a "Star Trek Chronology" that I have says that its author rejected all the
Star Trek matter cartoon episodes and all Star Trek stories which are only in
books and comics, to avoid a massive extra load of work weeding through that
matter to sort out a subset of it which could be fitted without excessive
contradictions into the time limits of the established Star Trek time-line.
(Does anyone out there have a list of all Star Trek cartoons and book and
comic stories?, so I can know what there are and roughly what they are about.)
  (12) {-ghach} lets us form infinitives of compound tenses, but many say not
of simple tenses. To avoid awkward or long-winded circumlocutions: please: can
Okrand please tell us: (a) Can any simple verb be used as its infinitive, as
some verbs can now? (b) If rule (a) causes ambiguity from homophones, can
{-ghach} be allowed to be added to simple verbs to remove these homophonies?
  (13) Can Okrand please give a ruling on the vexed matter of whether e.g.
"One can kill prisoners" can be translated as {qama'pu' HoHlaHlu'}? Perhaps
the chance of someone wanting to use indefinite subject on an ability verb,
merely escaped his attention.

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