tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Mar 25 14:35:58 1997
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RE: Dax & nuq Hech jIH
- From: "David Trimboli" <[email protected]>
- Subject: RE: Dax & nuq Hech jIH
- Date: Tue, 25 Mar 97 00:55:53 UT
jatlh mIqIraH:
> jatlh SuStel:
>
> > Remember, Hamlet and the rest of the KSRP are NOT canon. Hamlet, for
example,
> > has {Hoch} always follow the noun it's modifying, not precede it. Some of
> > those who worked on Hamlet are of the camp that says that {nuqneH} is
about
> > the same as "What's up?" This does not make it correct. It also doesn't
make
> > it wrong. But it is not evidence either way.
>
> True. However, one might argue (myself not being that one) that "What's
> up?" and "What do you want?" are ROUGHLY the same. And, that non-canon
> alternate definition is helpful as a deterrant for those who begin every
> message with {nuqneH}. Now, my personal take on this one is the
> conservative route; e.g., {nuqneH} literally means what's up, and it is
> also the only thing a Klingon would possibly need to say in way of
> greeting to another Klingon.
Well, here's just another way to interepret "what do you want?" But Hamlet
uses {nuqneH} as "Greetings, fellows, I'm entering the room now, and I thought
I'd say something to break the ice." It's not an inquiry. In my opinion,
{nuqneH} is an inquiry.
The reason the KSRP uses {nuqneH} this way? Because when translating
Shakespeare, who has most of his entering characters say something of an
introductory nature, you've got to put *something* there!
Actually, Nick, if you're paying attention, I think this would be a viable
idea: leaving these lines blank where they don't make sense to Klingons.
Since the idea is that Shakespeare was a Klingon whose works were stolen by
the Federation, one might show that all of the useless "hello"-style lines
were just added on by Terran forgers, because they thought these were needed.
Of course, it's far too late to think about this for Much Ado . . .
> Speaking of which, it is possible (speaking in fictitious Star Trek
> terms) that {nuqneH} was corrupted by humans during the first few
> encounters with this particular dialect, and has now taken on the
> "Hello" connotation during Klingon-outworlder conversation. In other
> words, humans heard the Klingons saying "nook-nekh" and assumed it meant
> hello. However, we have no evidence for that fact other than that many
> 20th Century humans use the word that way... don't make it seem like I
> was passing this off as canon, because it is just pure speculation! On
> Star Trek, one of the few uses of {nuqneH} was when emmisary K'Ehleyr
> came aboard the Enterprise. Riker, hoping to impress the Klignon woman,
> said, "nook-nekh" with a terrible Terran accent. This lends support to
> my speculation, but still doesn't make it canonical Klingon or tlhIngan
> Hol!
Actually, I imagine that Riker read his version of TKD and misunderstood
(again, my opinion) the word {nuqneH} the way most people do at first.
I *don't* think Klingons would use {nuqneH} incorrectly with humans just
because the humans are too ethnocentric to get it right!
--
SuStel
Beginners' Grammarian
Stardate 97229.4