tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Feb 09 13:00:09 1997
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RE: Word Origin Speculation II
Qum Holtej:
|> Posted for Glen Proechel, director of the Interstellar Language School
|> ***NOTE -- This is speculation and is NOT canon
|
|***NOTE -- This is fantasy and is NOT reality
Merely your opinion. The only one who can say for sure is Okrand. Why don't
we ask him? Even better, why don't you post *your* list of his puns and we
can take pot shots at you instead of Glen, who isn't on this list to defend
himself. (Glen doesn't have email access at the moment.)
|These are complete stretches; I don't buy any of them as intentional.
Cf. infra.
|> 2) Reversies. That is, forming synonyms or antonyms by saying the words
|> backwards: SIm = calculate, mIS = confusion.
|
|I don't agree with /noj/ - /jon/, or /SIm/ - /mIS/.
SIm | mIS has been noted for quite a while. How good is Okrand at math? Not
very, if you remember his "ternary number system" theory (cf. TKD 5.2).
|> 4) Internal changes: In some cases synonyms are created by changing the
|> middle vowel: SeS = steam, SIS = rain, SUS = wind, ghur = increase (go up),
|> ghIr = decrease (go down), magh=betray, mugh = translate.
SeS | SIS | SuS may show another intentional phonaestheme.
|I don't believe /magh/ - /mugh/ show any relation. Again, scant evidence
|to base claims of a "trend" on.
Then you just betray your own ignorance of the old translator's epigram:
Traduttore traditore. ("The translator is a traitor.") This classic Italian
proverb reminds us that *all* translations are unfaithful to the original
to some degree; some more than others. I'm surprised it didn't leap
immediately to the mind of a "Holtej". This too has been noted before.
|> HoS = power (horse power)
Actually, this one I like: "hoss" power!
|> nIH = steal (nick)
It's outdated English slang. Now we tend to say "rip off."
|I'll stop. I just wanted to make the point that the vast majority of
|these things (except many of the mentioned puns, which I agree are by
|design, and are fun) are just random stretches. If anything, it gives us
|a glimpse into Glen's mind, not Okrand's.
| [....]
|I do agree that the puns are fun. For most of the other stuff, there
|seems to be far too little evidence (much of which is more likely the
|product of Glen's imagination, less likely intentional creations by
|Okrand) to accept as noteworthy.
Glen's interpretation of Klingon is frequently off the wall, but no more so
than many others' on this list--including one or two BGs (who shall remain
nameless). Still, the fact that *you* can't see a relationship proves
nothing. Okrand is the only one who knows for sure. But I agree that Glen's
(and your) reactions are more revealing of the two of you than of Okrand.
Also puns (intentional or otherwise) do make it easier for many of us to
remember what the Klingon "words" mean. I'm all in favor of identifying as
many as we can simply as a pedagogical tool.
By all accounts, Okrand does have a fairly active sense of humor. It would
be interesting to know how much of this playfulness was intentional and how
much was subconscious. I suspect that the vocabulary is much less random
than we think. Keeping in mind that Okrand was trained in West Coast
Amerindian languages (specifically Costanoan) and that virtually all of his
source materials for the extinct Mutsun dialect were in Spanish (go read
his dissertation), I wonder how many more non-English derived puns there
are waiting to be discovered.
Voragh