tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu May 16 09:44:18 1996
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Re: Beginner's questions
Thomas Zeman <[email protected]> writes:
\
\ Greetings!
\
\ I have been lurking here for a while and I have a few questions:
\
\ 1. What is qep'a', as in qep'a' wejDIch? I know that qep means
\ "meeting". I found 'a' on page 165 of TKD as an augmentative noun
\ suffix. What does that mean?
It means it augments (increases) the meaning of the noun. So "qep" is
"meeting", and "qep'a'" is "great meeting", "major meeting",
"THE meeting", etc. It's used, in this case, to refer to an annual
gathering of Klingonists near KLI central in Pennsylvania.
\ 2. I get the feeling from reading some of the messages here that there
\ is more vocabulary than appears just in TKD. Is this so? If yes, does
\ the KLI maintain a full compilation of all the vocabulary?
There is more vocabulary. There have been words introduced on the
Skybox Klingon trading cards, in the audio tapes
_Conversational_Klingon_ and _Power_Klingon_, in _The_Klingon_Way_, in
the Klingon CD-ROM, and directly to the KLI via interviews with Marc
Okrand published in _HolQeD_. As far as I know, there is no central
compilation of the full lexicon.
\ 3. How are new words added to the language? Are the ST writers and Marc
\ Okrand the only legitimate source?
We consider Marc Okrand the only legitimate source for additions to the
language. The stuff done by the ST writers is only incorporated after
Marc Okrand has backfit it in a published work (such as the words
introduced by writers for TNG and then included in the addendum to
TKD).
\ 4. What about the pIqaD? I read something recently that one or more
\ systems have been worked out, but that they have not been approved by
\ Paramount (or something to that effect). Is this true, and is the
\ material available?
Yes. The "not approved by Paramount" bit refers to the official
position of the graphic designer for the Star Trek series and movies,
Mike Okuda. He does not want to establish any mapping between the
sounds of Klingon and the writing we see onscreen, because he wants
freedom to consider nothing but artistic concerns when designing sets.
Therefore there is no officially sanctioned mapping. The KLI does,
however, use a simple alphabetic mapping between the Roman
transcriptions and a subset of the characters that have appeared on
screen; this mapping is given in the first issue of _HolQeD_, and fonts
making use of it are available from the KLI.
\ \ 5. Finally, a few comments:
\
\ I ordered a copy of "Hamlet", as published by the KLI. I received my
\ copy within a week of when I mailed my check, and it is very nice. I am
\ very pleased with mine, and if you don't have one, you should order one.
\ Mine will be proudly taking up residence next to my TKD (1st edition from
\ 1985!), and my new copy of M.O.'s "The Klingon Way".
I am also quite proud of my 1985 1st edition (autographed!) TKD, but
you should probably also invest in the 2nd edition. It includes a lot
of new vocabulary, and it lets you keep your 1st edition in pristine
state while thumb-wearing the pages in the new one. :)
--
Mark J. Reed | http://www.sware.com
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