tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Dec 05 08:01:38 1999
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Re: qISmaS
ja' "Michael Kaplan" <[email protected]>:
>So does anyone have a translation concept for Christmas that is more than
>just a
>transliteration?
tlhaQ! "Christmas" itself is a transliteration!
"Christ's Mass" is literally a public celebration of the Eucharist with
special attention given to the "anointed one". That in itself is an odd
concept, since the Eucharist is already rather firmly focused on Christ,
but nobody ever said religion had to be logical.
Any reasonably complete explanation of Christmas would be very long in
Klingon. It's very long in English, for that matter. Entire animated
films and live-action miniseries have been dedicated to that task. If
you just want to explain why the streets are decorated and everyone is
going around whistling "Silver Bells", one word suffices: {yupma'}.
Anything more starts to get into lots of cultural details that aren't
necessarily important, and likely aren't even universal.
{QISmaS} is what I use to name the holiday in Klingon. To describe it
concisely I would say {QIStoS qoS}, relying on shared cultural context
to carry the rest of the meaning. I'm not likely to write an article
for the Encyclopedia Klingonica explaining the holiday's significance.
-- ghunchu'wI' 'utlh