tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Mar 01 03:48:48 1997

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RE: KLBC: New Words - magic, magician

jatlh Y'jImbotlh-wa'maH of House l'maSto'r:

> In my search for new Klingon words, I have tried to come up with words
> for magic and magician (sorcerer, etc.).	
> 
> Here's my thoughts:	
> 
> chambe'cham = magic (no-technology technology)
> 
> chambe'chamwI' = magician (no-technology technician)	
> 
> I realize from the notes this morning that the absolutely correct form
> of no-technology could be chamHa', but, again, I am exterpolating from	
> chamwI' (technician - one who does technology) that cham is actually a
> verb-form, making the correct form chambe' for no-technology or
> technology-not.

No way.  You can't do this.  {chamwI'} is a noun, but there's no verb {cham}.  
You cannot extrapolate like this.  If anyone could make up words like this, 
pretty soon no one would be able to understand anyone else.  I, for one, would 
have no clue about what {chambe'cham} was supposed to mean.

> I also toyed with the idea of Clarke's Theorem (Any technology,
> sufficiantly advanced becomes indistinguishable from magic) and use
> cham'Itlh for magic and cham'Itlhwi' for magician, but I like the sound
> of chambe'cham and chambe'chamwI' better.  They sound like magic
> incantations already.

Now you're not only pulling apart word elements illegally, you're also making 
a verb compound, which is not permitted either.

"Magic" is one of those words which we have no good translation for.  Who 
knows?  Maybe Klingons never believed in magic?  They did kill their gods off, 
after all . . .  This might explain why there are no words for it.  Then 
again, it's possible that the research just hasn't uncovered this concept yet.

-- 
SuStel
Beginners' Grammarian
Stardate 97164.0

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