tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Mar 25 15:20:28 1999

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RE: KLBC: an ancient battle



: jatlh Lorenzo:
: > la' qeng negh.
: > The scouts inform the commander.
: 
: <negh> means "soldiers", as in the whole group as a unit. If you want 
: to say "scouts", you could use <nejwI'pu'> - "searchers" or <bejwI'pu'>
: - "watchers", depending on the situation.
: 
: pagh
: Beginners' Grammarian

Bill Willmerdinger talked about scouts and scoutships with Marc Okrand -
who didn't supply a word for either - at BabelCon II (April 1997):

	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. 

The names for specialized ships seem to be formed three ways in Klingon:

NOUN{Duj}

	may'Duj  battle cruiser

	SuyDuj  merchant ship

	toDDuj  rescue ship (cf. infra)

	toQDuj  Bird-of-Prey 

	veQDuj  garbage scow 

	veSDuj  warship

VERB{meH} {Duj}

	ngongmeH Duj  experimental ship, prototype (untranslated on S33)

	QongmeH Duj  sleeper ship (S15)

VERB{Duj}

	HIvDuj  attack fighter

	lupDujHom  shuttlecraft

	qughDuj  cruiser

	toDDuj  rescue ship (cf. infra)

This last group may eventually prove to be a contracted version of the
VERB{meH} {Duj} pattern.  OTOH, these may also be derived from the
homophonous nouns for {HIv}, {lup} and {qugh} that were ommitted from the
glossaries or which have become obsolete in "modern" Klingon.

Note: I'm not sure which method produced {toDDuj} "rescue ship", as {toD}
"rescue" is both a verb and a noun.  Likewise {tongDuj} "freighter": I
don't know what *[tong} means or what part of speech it is.

All that being said, there are now two good candidates for a "scout" in
Klingon: *{tlhargh} or *{tlharghwI'}.  On the BoP poster we read {bI'rel
tlharghDuj} "B'rel Scout".  At this time, we don't know what part of speech
*{tlhargh} is, so we can't sure of the final form, or even if it survives
in the "modern" language.  


-- 
Voragh                       
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons



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