tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Feb 10 08:32:19 1997

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Re: qogh vs. teS

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>Date: Sat, 1 Feb 1997 17:11:20 -0800
>From: Steven Boozer <[email protected]>
>
>On Fri, 31 Jan 1997, David Trimboli wrote:
>
>		... thy uncle stole,
>With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial,
>And in the porches of mine ears did pour
>The leperous distilment;
>
>mucholmeH pegh'egh vavloDnI'lI' 'ong.
>ej He'benon tItaS HIvje'Hom qengDI',
>qoghDu'wIj 'ochDaq DIrroptaSvam chaghmoH.
>
>Later in Act III, Scene 2, Hamlet has hired the wandering players to
>re-enact the poisoning of his father in order to observe Claudius'
>reactions and "catch the conscience of the king." SeQpIr describes the
>action thus: 
>
>"Anon comes in a fellow, takes off his crown, kisses it, and pours poison
>in the King's ears, and exit."
>
>tugh 'el loD latlh. ta' mIv teq 'ej roS. ta' qoghDaq tar chagh 'ej mej.

Interesting.  Looks like we were inconsistent in using "chagh"
vs. "chaghmoH".  I'd think we should have used one or the other in both
cases.

>They used {qogh}, since this seems to describe the action better: the
>poisoner grabs hold of the victim's ear (the flap of skin/cartilege on the
>side of his head) and pours poison through it into the ear canal where it
>is presumably absorbed into the blood stream. 

Indeed.

>We'll have to ask Maltz where Klingons draw the dividing line between the
>outer, visible ear {qogh} and the internal organ of hearing {teS}. Okrand
>discusses these two terms in HolQeD 2.4. On MSN Okrand defines {qogh} as:
>"An organ used for sonic perception. In the majority of humanoids, an ear
>is found on each side of the head." {qogh} also shows up in Klingon slang
>(qogh tuQmoHHa'). To me this implies that {qogh} is probably the more
>generally used of the two, with {teS} of more interest, perhaps, to doctors
>and anatomists.

Not necessarily;  "mu'aw' teSDu'wIj" (along the same lines as canon "mu'aw'
mInDu'wIj"/"my eyes sting") would be appropriate for complaining about an
overly high ambient noise level, while "mu'aw' qoghDu'wIj" would imply
you'd been injured on your ears.  As to "qogh tuQmoHHa'", I suspect that by
rights "teS" is better there, but "qogh" is used to make the play on words
work.

I've occasionally wondered about something similar, in LAadan, another
constructed language.  LAadan has no verbs for "see", "hear", "smell",
"taste", "feel (physically)", etc.  Only the verb "lAad", meaning "to
perceive (externally)" (i.e. perceive physically, even if inside the body,
as opposed to perceiving emotions or ideas).  You have to say "I perceive
you with [my] eyes" for "I see you", and "I perceive you with [my] ears"
for "I hear you" and so on ("...with [my] skin/flesh" for "feel", "...with
[my] tongue" for "taste"...)  So how, I thought, would you say "My ears
hurt"?  You can't say "I feel pain with my ears", because that would mean
"I hear pain" (actually it might not.  LAadan is forgiving about contexts,
and probably would make sense of this appropriately.  But maybe I want to
say "I feel the piano with my ears" not meaning that I hear it, but that I
am rubbing my head against it).  I figure you'd probably say "I feel pain
with [my] skin (or flesh) at [my] ears" (using the locative).

~mark

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