tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Sep 30 21:09:52 1996

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Re: yIqIm: Hol in books

Soqra'tIS asks:
>>Just finished reading "The Ashes Of Eden" by William Shatner and ran
>>across some Hol that I'd like the Grammerians to comment on.
>>
>><Chalchaj 'qmey>  Children of Heaven (per the book)
>>
>>		    				 What about *<'qmey>?? Is
>>this valid or did the publishers (typesetters) mess up? Wouldn't <chalchaj
>>'qmey> realy be "Children of their heaven"?? or should *<chalchaj 'qmey>
>>realy be *<chalchaj puqmey> ??

~mark replies:
>Read it a year or two ago.  I wouldn't go so far as to call what's in it
>"Hol", but it was obviously written by someone who knew which direction of
>TKD to hold facing up.
>
>My guess: An attempt for "Heaven's children."  The -chaj at the end seems
>to be pretty common among beginners in possessive constructions when it's
>incorrect ("the Humans' books" becomes "*Humanpu' puqchaj"; this is
>actually on the other noun; whatever).  If the writers were any better at
>their Klingon, I could really like "'qmey" for "children", taking the ' as
>not the Klingon consonant but the English mark of elision (maybe better
>written as - in this case, to avoid confusion), under the theory that
>"puqmey" became worn down to the (non-Klingon-sounding) "qmey" over the
>years.

That just may have been Shatner's attempt at "archaic" Klingon. I quote
from p. 66 of the paperback:

    ... "Uhura, give the computer the Klingon phrase Jade found so
interesting. I'll never be able to pronounce it."
    Uhura cleared her throat. "Computer: translate the Klingon phrase
*chalchaj 'qmey*."
    The computer complied at once. "Literally, the phrase translates as an
archaic form of 'the sky's offspring'."
    "That's close to what I thought," Uhura said.
    But the computer kept on speaking. "In the context of the death poem
of Molor, the phrase translates as 'the children of heaven,' referring to
those who would inherit the lands destroyed by Molor during his final war
against Kahless and his followers."
    Sulu shook his head. "More code words?"

This refers to two more lines from Molor's death poem Chekov and Uhura
had overheard: 'the path of the fourth-rank watch dragon' and 'by Praxis'
light, in seasons still to come'. The poem (from "about fifteen hundred
years ago") is "considered a classic."


Voragh.

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