tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Jun 17 23:25:43 1997
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Re: jeq - New canon word?
On Sun, 15 Jun 1997 [email protected] wrote:
|At the bookstore, I saw a small Star Trek book. It resembled a Federation
|Passport book I had seen before, but this one was a vacation book. It
|shouldn't be too hard to find in the bookstore. It included restaurant and
|hotel locations for different planets. I looked at the Qo'noS section, and
That would be Michael Jan Friedman's _Star Trek: Federation Travel Guide_,
(New York: Pocket Books, c1997), ISBN 0-671-00978-8. This is a little 4 x 6
inch stapled booklet (ca. 60 unnumbered pages) selling for US$ 6.00. FYI,
the section on Qo'noS is only 4 pages. Cute, but it's not worth buying
unless you're REALLY into Trek.
|saw that there was a "key phrase" which the book claimed every tourist should
|know when visiting Qo'noS: <tajwIj 'oHbe' chorlIj jeqbogh Dochvetlh'e'>, if I
|remember correctly. It was translated as "That's not my dagger protruding
|from your midsection."
| I therefore believe that <jeq> is a canon verb which means "to protrude
|(from)." Although the book was not written by Marc Okrand, I suspect he may
|have been asked to translate this sentence because:
|1 - the rest of the tlhIngan Hol used in the Qo'noS section is spelled and
|translated correctly, although the English spelling of <ghe''or> is used.
Here, "Gre'thor" is the name of a recommended restaurant in the capital
catering to offworld merchants. Since its clientele is primarily alien,
it's not surprising that it would have an "exotic" sounding (to Klingons)
Federation Standard name. Pretty clever, actually.
|names are used. Therefore, the author of the book took some time to get the
|Klingon in it correct.
|2 - The sentence <tajwIj 'oHbe' chorlIj jeqbogh Dochvetlh'e'> is quite
|correctly translated, including the <-'e'> suffix indicating the head noun of
|the <-bogh> clause. Whoever took the time to translate this sentence
|correctly wouldn't make up a new word at random, unless it was Marc Okrand
I examined the book and, although Okrand isn't mentioned anywhere, neither
is anyone else for that matter--such as the artists, photographers, and
research assistants at Paramount who gathered most of the information from
over 30 years of Trek. Not surprising considering the format of the thing.
And Okrand is even now writing another "travel" guide for Pocket Books.
But I suspect you're right about {jeq}. The phrase just "feels right"
(using a {-bogh} construction which I wouldn't have expected from Friedman)
and it even smacks of Okrand's sense of humor.
There's an easy way to find out: why doesn't someone on MSN.com ask Okrand
now that he's apparently back on the Klingon Expert Forum BBS (or whatever
MSN calls it)? SuStel? Ken? charghwI'? Hoch 'ebmey tIjon!
-- Voragh