tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jan 27 22:23:39 1997

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Re: petaQ or P'Tahk



On Mon, 27 Jan 1997, KATIE MONCELSI wrote:

|Can somebody tell me  if there is any difference between petaQ and
|P'Tahk. I know petaQ is a curse but in "Faces" the Klingon B'Elanna
|calls her human counterpart P'Tahk I was wondering if this was supposed
|to be petaQ.

Same word, different transcription. It's also been spelled: pahtk (The
Defector, Rightful Heir), p'tak (Aquiel, First Born, Shattered Mirror,
Sword of Kahless, Bar Association), patahk (Sins of the Father), pahtak
(Reunion, House of Quark), pah-tak (The Chase [script]) and, just possibly,
baktag (Redemption II). 

In an attempt to try to explain the "Klingon" we see on television, Okrand
once hinted that the transcription system for Klingon favored by the
Federation in the 24th century (TNG-DS9-VOY) is different from the one used
back in the 23rd century when Maltz was captured and interrogated by
Federation linguists. The closed captions in the movies would tend to bear
this out. 

The same thing happens in "real life".  The city generally spelled
"Beizhing" today used to be called "Peking". There have been dozens of
systems used to transcribe Russian, Hebrew, Arabic, etc. The city the
Russians know as Moskva (and spell MOCKBA in Cyrillic) is also known as
Moscou, Moskau, Moscu' and Moscow. 

Just remember to spell the Klingons' favorite insult {petaQ} when you're
writing tlhIngan Hol. 

Voragh



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