tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Jul 12 14:56:04 1998
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Anecdotal Okrand
- From: Steven Boozer <[email protected]>
- Subject: Anecdotal Okrand
- Date: Sun, 12 Jul 1998 16:54:45 -0500 (CDT)
I was inspired this weekend to {gher} (!) the stories people have shared here
on the list about conversations they've had with or statements they've
overheard by Marc Okrand. "Anecdotal evidence" as it were. These tidbits
come from various sources: the last two qep'a'mey, various Trek conventions,
personal communications (emails and phone calls), radio and television
interviews, etc.
I thought the membership would be interested in seeing this and I hope that
it will inspire others to post their own stories. The source of each
anecdote, when known, is given in parentheses. A few of these have made it
into the pages of HolQeD in more detail. If I have made any errors of fact
or attribution, please let me know and I'll correct my notes. A couple of
general questions are given first, and the rest are arranged more or less
alphabetically by the Klingon word discussed.
So, without further ado ...
"The first one I nailed him with was our lovely QAO ... You can not use a
'question' as an object; but ... it is not known yet if Klingon question
words can act as ... [a] relative pronoun." (DloraH, Praxis Con 5/98)
"beings capable of using language" -- "They must be a 'being', which rules
out things like computers. And yes, it must be able to use language. This was
not simply another way of stating sentience ... Now, to clarify 'use of
language' a little bit: A child which has not yet developed language would
still get {- wI'}. This kind of goes along with how Klingon doesn't have
tense. 99.9% chance that this child will later use language. Someone earlier
brought up the hypothetical situation: if someone is in a coma, they can not
speak. Well, they were able to, and perhaps will someday again. They still
get {-wI'}. When someone dies, if you are talking about the 'person' they get
{-wI'}; and of course if you are referring to the empty shell that is left,
it gets a {-wIj}." (DloraH, Praxis Con5/98)
At qep'a' loSDIch "Robyn Stewart's idea of {lutu'lu'} as the Klingon version
of whom got a nod and an explicit lack of contradiction [from Okrand]. {naDev
tlhInganpu' lutu'lu'} is grammatical, but the {lu-} is more often left off."
(ghunchu'wI')
"I was talking with Marc about this yesterday. I mentioned that the only
problem with the {bachHa'} error in the book was that it was, by definition,
canonical. I could hear him smiling over the phone as he said, `But that's
only in the Klingon to English side. It's correct the other way.'" (Lawrence)
Krankor asked Okrand at qep'a' loSDIch whether {-be'} can be inserted between
{-taH} and {-vIS} for a suffix combination {-taHbe'vIS} (meaning something
like 'while discontinuously'). The answer was: "That's an interesting
question." (HetaQ)
{buy'} be full, be filled up KGT ["Now, after a big meal, and your belly is
big, you can't eat another bite. You can't say {jIbuy'}. Your stomach can be
full, but YOU can't; not in this context anyways." (DloraH, Praxis Con 5/98)]
{DaS} boot [JOKE: "Das Boot"! "Last year, I asked Marc Okrand if it was
intentional; he said yes. (Perhaps the success of Das Boot with its German
dialogue and English subtitles is related to Paramount's deciding to do
something similar with Klingon in ST3.)" (ghunchu'wI', qep'a' wejDIch)
"As {Dung} means area above, I had always asumed that {DungluQ} meant high
sun. I asked Okrand if this was in fact the case, and if so could we infer
that {luQ} meant sun. He flatly said `No you can't.' Apparently it is derived
from {Dung}, but he did not have high sun in mind when he coined the word. In
fact he said he created {DungluQ} before the Paramount writers came up with
high sun, and he was even a little ticked at the writers for inferring high
sun." (SuSvaj, qep'a' loSDIch)
"After we (Dragon Systems) recorded the "native speakers" to make the
acoustic models to build the speech recognition for the Language Lab on the
Klingon CD-ROM, I got the idea of sending each speaker a formal thank-you
letter. I translated our company letterhead into Klingon and, using the
KLIpIqaD font, scissors, tape, and a color copier, made a bunch of Dragon
Systems stationery with Klingon in {pIqaD} at the top and transliterated
Klingon and English in small type at the bottom. But since this was
associated with an official Klingon product, I wanted to be sure my Klingon
was correct. I had been working with Marc Okrand by phone and email during
the project, and so I sent him the text of my transliterated Klingon
letterhead, asking especially about my word for 'fax', which at the time was
a compound word with no space. He wrote back, approximately, that he liked
the idea, but he would prefer to express it as a two-word phrase, {nav
HablI'}; and he also suggested the corresponding {ghogh HablI'} for
'telephone.' ... Since my office is in a different building from the company
reception desk I prefer to give people the number of the fax machine closest
to my desk. I put both numbers on the letterhead, labeling them in English
'Klingon fax' and 'general fax'.. Dr. Okrand suggested {le'be'} for 'general',
and so of course that's what I used." (Mark Mandel, cf. HolQeD 5.2)
"My interpretation of Valkris' {HablI' Su' labbeH} line in ST3 as a command
to the data-transceiving device (analagous to a pet command) was confirmed
[by Okrand]. Apparently the subtitle `Ready to transmit' is not very good."
(ghunchu'wI', qep'a' loSDIch)
{HolQeD} linguistics KGT ["Actually, this IS canonical. It is a backfit that
Marc Okrand was kind enough to provide (I think in an interview), casually
acknowledging that of course this compound meant 'language science, or
linguistics.' And, presumably it does open the door to geology and
mathematics and many more." (Lawrence) HolQeD is name of the KLI quarterly
journal.]
{jIl} neighbor (n.) [Okrand confirmed at qep'a' wejDIch that he had a
neighbor named "Jill." (Qov)]
"I had added {jotlhHa'} as 'put up', but Marc [Okrand] pointed out that
{-Ha'} not only negates but changes state (undoes), and that 'put back up'
would be a better translation." (Bill Willmerdinger, BabelCon 2)
"Marc nodded, smiling infuriatingly, to confirm {mIQ} (deep fry) as in
mIQ-Donald's french fries." (Qov, qep'a' loSDIch) "Again this is not intended
as a literal translation but rather a rough approximate to a similar cooking
method occasionally used by Klingons (implying that not all Klingon food must
be consumed raw)." (Lawrence, HolQeD 6.2: 20)
{mon} smile, grin, sneer KGT, snarl, smirk (vb.) [JOKE: "Mona Lisa" ({mon'a'}
Is she smiling?) Confirmed by Okrand at qep'a' wejDIch.]
Okrand confirmed at qep'a' loSDIch that {nay} came from "nay" (no). (HetaQ)]
"Krankor's favorite word (he told me so) is {neHmaH} 'neutral zone' because
when separated into two words {neH maH} means `We want it.' Yes it is cute
but Okrand did not intentionally do it." (HetaQ, qep'a' loSDIch)
SuSvaj happened to be sitting next to Okrand at qep'a' wejDIch when everyone
was socializing and horsing around. While someone was giving a noogie to a
hapless victim, Krankor jokingly said "We really should have a word for
'noogie'." So SuSvaj asked Okrand, what the Klingon word for noogie was. He
replied, "Well that would be {nughI'}." Asked if this was borrowed from
English, he said that he was fairly certain that the English word had
actually been borrowed from {tlhIngan Hol}! "He suggested that some
word-borrowing was going on, and I think he said he wasn't sure which culture
had borrowed from which." (SuStel)
"It is not infrequent to hear nonnative speakers of Klingon use nuqneH "what
do you want?" as if it meant "hello" or the like in exchanges such as:
Speaker #1: nuqneH
Speaker #2: nuqneH
No one steeped in Klingon culture would do this, however (except in some sort
of a joking context, perhaps). To begin a conversation, just start! Or
approach someone and wait for him/her to say {nuqneH} to you. If that person
doesn't say anything, you probably don't want to talk to him/her anyway." (MO
on MSN Expert Forum BBS 9/97) Okrand told someone during a 10/96 convention
in Halifax that {nuqneH} and {Qapla'} were equally acceptable. You'd use
{Qapla'} when greeting great warriors, but the general greeting would be
{nuqneH}. (jejQIb)
"Marc Okrand and I were recently both guests at a memorial convention
honoring the life and career of actor Mark Lenard... During the
convention's banquet, its organizers saw fit to bestow a small gift upon the
two of us: dark rods with strange tips. The organizers explained that they
couldn't find any 'painsticks' to give us, so instead they were presenting
each of us with what they had termed 'annoying sticks.' Marc and I took our
cues and spent a moment poking at each other with our new gifts, and indeed
it was annoying. Later in the evening, as we wandered about with our sticks,
we considered the proper name for such implements. {'oynQ} meant painstick,
presumably historically drawn from {'oy'} 'ache' and {naQ} 'staff', though
the rule for making one word from these two is not currently known. Alas,
Maltz was nowhere to be found. We toyed with a name for our gifts and came up
with {nuQ naQ}, a short sentence which might be rendered as 'a stick
annoys'." (Lawrence, HolQeD 7.2)
Okrand confirmed the word {ngech}, meaning "woman's cleavage," at qep'a'
wejDIch. "I think I remember someone hearing about {ngech} at the qep'a' and
beginning to pester Okrand about {chabDu'}. He didn't want to answer that
one, and I felt for him." (SuStel)
Okrand mentioned at qep'a' wejDIch that {-pu'} was originally intended to be
past tense before he abandoned tense altogether. (charghwI' & SuStel)
At qep'a' loSDIch Okrand was puzzled by a comment someone made and said
something like, "There's a word for 'Thank you'?" Someone told him
{qatlho'}, and he said something along the lines of, "I never intended it to
mean 'thanks'" and elaborated a little on the circumstances it would be used
in." (Qov)
{qa'vIn} coffee KGT (the Terran beverage) ["Okrand acknowledges that it is
unclear whether this obvious cognate refers to the beverage itself, or to the
prominence of 'caffeine' in the brew, or perhaps to both at once." (Lawrence,
HolQeD 4.2:7) "When Marc gave me the word (we were chatting by phone) I
immediately asked him if it was cognate for 'coffee' or for 'caffeine'. I
could hear him smiling on the phone as he replied something like, `Yes,
that's a very good question...'" (Lawrence)]
"At qep'a' wejDIch we played the `hokey-pokey' with Klingon body part names
... For {qIvon}, everyone looked a bit confused - including Marc - and just
put the whole body `in' and `out'." (ghunchu'wI')
"{Qapla'} means 'success', which has become used as a general hail..." Q:
"Well, we have to wrap this up now. Tell me, Dr Okrand, how does a Klingon
say goodbye?" A: "He doesn't. When he's finished his business he just
leaves." (sound of chair scraping across floor, sound of footsteps walking
away, sound of door opening, a few more footsteps, door closing)." (Okrand,
interviewed on National Public Radio) In Halifax, Okrand said that {nuqneH}
and {Qapla'} were equally acceptable: you'd use {Qapla'} when greeting great
warriors, but the general greeting would be {nuqneH}. (jejQIb 10/96) Okrand
has explained that {Qapla'} "does not mean the same thing as 'goodbye'" but
is used as a sort of salute as warriors go off to battle. (KCD) It is a word
reserved for ending a significant conversation with warriors about to go to
battle or otherwise set off for some mission of significance. (charghwI')
Okrand himself uses it as a closing salutation at the end of the Introduction
to TKW, the Introduction to KGT and often at the end of his posts on the
Expert Forum and startrek.klingon BBS.
At qep'a' loSDIch, "Krankor asked MO if he was right in using {reH} for
playing his guitar (which he did regularly--both playing the guitar and
referring to it using {reH}, that is). He said he hoped it was right because
if it wasn't he had nothing else. MO replied that {reH} did not mean play in
the sense of playing a musical instrument ... He didn't volunteer a better
word though." (Soqra'tIS) BTW, we now know this word is {chu'} according to
KGT p.74.
Okrand confirmed at qep'a' loSDIch that {Saw} came from "sure" with a
Southern drawl. (HetaQ)
"It rained a few times during the weekend, so we were put into the situation
to discuss it. {SIS}. {SISqu'}. {SIStaH}. {SISchoH}. All correct. {SISlu'},
although grammatically correct, he didn't particularly like ... You can also
give it an object and say things like the clouds rained down cats and dogs
... But when Marc and I went outside and drops of water were falling on us,
he looked up and simply said, '{SIS}'". (DloraH, Praxis Con 5/98)
In a brief interview Marc Okrand talked about how he had to invent the verb
{taH} during the filming of ST6. (UPN's ST 25th Anniv Special) Okrand said at
a qep'a' that when they sprang the "To be or not to be" request on him, he
said to himself that no matter what, there was no way he was going to put a
copula into Klingon, especially not NOW. (~mark) Okrand has stated that he
suggested {yIn pagh yInbe'}, but that actor Christopher Plummer (Chang)
rejected the line because it didn't "sound Klingon" enough. (source?)
"When I met Okrand at BabelCon in April, we `purchased' him at the slave
auction. His `official' duty was to clarify one word: {toQDuj} `bird of prey
(type of ship)'. According to Marc, a {toQ} is an avian predator on the
Homeworld whose closest Terran analogue would be a 'bird of prey'. When I
told him I had theorized that {toQ} might mean 'scout' (since that's what a
BoP is) he said no, it's definitely an animal from Qo'noS ... a Klingon avian
analogous to a Terran bird of prey. {toQ} does not literally mean 'bird of
prey', it's merely one type of creature which exhibits characteristics
similar to that grouping of Terran birds." (Bill Willmerdinger, BabelCon 2,
4/97)
"As the leader of the `red team' ... we requested the verb 'go through', and
we provided four sentences to Marc as examples of what we meant. As it turns
out, there are at least three different concepts that fit what we use go
through for in English, and we had to choose the one we wanted. The choices
were the bullet goes through the man's heart, the hunter goes through the
forest, and the train goes through the tunnel, with the last one being the
same idea as the bird goes through the window. So we asked for the bird goes
through the window and we received the verb {vegh}. This does not apply if
the window is closed, however; that seems to be yet another concept ...
Someone quickly complained to Marc Okrand that he had given us a vague
answer, and without a pause or blink or even a breath, Marc immediately
agreed." (ghunchu'wI') "Lawrence asked `Like shit through a goose?' (or some
similar example), to which Okrand held up four fingers and replied `Four.'
(as in a fourth word for through)." (HetaQ) "There has to be a boundary
around the path and you have to pass from open to restricted to open in order
to {vegh}. At one point, Okrand did use the word successfully in his
description." (charghwI') "I wrote it down as go through (an existing
aperture) and that seems to correctly represent the things it can and can't
mean." Subject: the thing that is doing the moving, object: the thing which
the subject is going through. Examples: the bird goes through the window (an
open window), the train goes through the tunnel, he goes through the door (an
open door). Notice in these examples the subject does NOT physically touch
the object; the bird going through an open window doesn't touch anything.
This word does NOT work for: the bullet went through his heart, his fist
went through the wall. In these examples the subject physically touches the
object; the bullet touched the heart as it went through it. (DloraH) Note
that this does mean: a man goes through an open door, a bird goes through an
open window or a woman goes through a tunnel. Note that it explicitly does
NOT mean: a man's fist goes through a closed door, an arrow goes through a
bird's heart or a woman goes through a forest. (charghwI') SuSvaj's notes
read "go through (an existing opening)." (Qov) This was the word the winning
team at qep'a' loSDIch won from Marc Okrand as their grand prize.
When Lawrence told Okrand of some people's quibbles regarding the legitimacy
of {yejHaD}, "he laughed and suggested that surely the KLI is a very ancient
and venerable institution, whose name goes back to an earlier dialect!"
(Lawrence on {tlhIngan Hol yejHaD} "Klingon Language Institute")
{yoymoHwI'} inverter ["I had needed some technobable once and created
inverter by putting {-moH} and {-wI'} on {yoy} 'be upside down', which Marc
[Okrand] said was perfect." (Bill Willmerdinger, BabelCon 2)]
"I was surprised to learn that we were using {'awje'} incorrectly at the
qep'a' [loSDIch]. It is not a general term for any non- potent drink, but is
a specific beverage, that is similar in appearance to root beer. In fact,
Okrand points out that there is no single all purpose word for 'soft drink'."
(SuSvaj) "Okrand was quick to point out that this was not a literal
translation, but rather more of a generic term for a nonpotent beverage, one
which occurs in Klingon proverbs and was probably what Worf meant when
remarking that you cannot pry secrets out of someone with root beer."
(Lawrence, HolQeD 6.2: 20)
{'I'} armpit KGT [Confirmed by Okrand at qep'a' wejDIch. (Seqram) "At qep'a'
wejDIch we played the `hokey-pokey' with Klingon body part names. Of course,
{'I'} was quickly used." (ghunchu'wI')]
{'ul} electricity (n) KGT [JOKE: At qep'a' loSDIch Okrand confirmed the
suspicion of a list member about its origin: electronic goods sold in the
United States have a sticker on them saying UL ("Underwriter's Laboratory")
showing they meet industry safety standards. (Qov)]
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons