tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Mar 07 09:16:09 1999
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Re: mu'mey Dajqu'
On Sat, 6 Mar 1999, Terry Donnelly wrote:
> david joslyn wrote:
> >
> > tlhIngan mu'mey Dajqu' Sanob
> > (I give you some very intereting Klingon words.)
> >
> Someone else I'm sure will caution you about trying to break
> Klingon words down into their components. Marc Okrand himself
> has said that you can't assume that even a word that seems
> easy to break down (eg. /QongDaq/) is actually made
> from the components we think we can isolate. The danger
> in this approach is breaking down a word that has only one
> component listed in the dictionary, and then trying to make
> a meaning for the other component (as if I took the word
> /rewbe'/, decided it was made from 'X' + 'woman', and then
> tried to use /rew/ by itself to mean 'X'). I think MO's
> unwillingness to admit that even the most obvious compounds
> are indeed made of existing elements is a warning to us to
> prevent this kind of extrapolation.
Oh, I'm completely aware of MO's twisted sense of humour [witness the
tlhingan word for "spoon" :-)]. That fact actually encourages me to look
for such puns.
> > Last and certainly best:
> >
> > Ha'DIbaH - animal. lit. "let's go kill (shoot) them!" From:
> > <Ha'> - let's go, and
> > <DIbaH> - we fire (missiles/arrows/etc.) at them.
> >
>
> This is pretty good. I think you have discovered not the actual
> "Klingon"
> components of the word, but another example of MO's sense of humor.
> We've been compiling lists of single-word puns for a long time (KGT is
> _full_ of them), but
> as far as I can remember, you're the first to point this one out.
COOL!!!
> > Are there any more mu'mey Dajqu'? If so let me know; I'm compiling a list.
>
> As amusements or aids to vocabulary learning, such lists are great.
> Just don't read
> too much into them.
>
> -- ter'eS
>
>
quljIb