tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat May 29 12:30:07 1999
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Re: use of <nav>
runa asked:
: Q: Does the word <nav> "paper" have the same extension of meaning in
: Klingon as in English so that it can mean "report" or "article"?
Probably not, though it is used often on this list to mean a "page". AFAIK
Okrand has never used {nav} in a sentence, but he did approve {nav HablI'}
"FAX
(machine)" - literally a "paper data tranceiving device" - as related by Mark
Mandel in HolQeD 5.2:
"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."
This suggests that {nav] refers more to the material, possibly in sheet form
(at least when used with fax machines), and not necessarily to what is written
on it, like reports, articles, letters, petitions, invoices, etc. In any
event, these would probably be most often composed and stored on hand-held
PADDs in the 24th century in the form of electronic data {De'}. We do know
that some paper books do still exist: Worf gave Data a copy of K'Ratak's
classic novel "The Dream of the Fire" in "The Measure of a Man" and Qua'lon
presented his nephew Pok with a leather-bound score to the opera {qul tuq}
"House of Fire" in KCD. Note that these were both gifts presented at a formal
occasion and may well have been antiques or rare books.
As for dealing with reports or articles, use the noun {SoQ} "a speech,
lecture,
address". Okrand told us on STC's newsgroup startrek.klingon (6/97) that the
idiom is {SoQ Dajatlh} "you speak an address/lecture" or, more colloquially,
"you deliver an address" or "you make a speech":
qama'pu'vaD SoQ Dajatlh
you make a speech to the prisoners
I don't know whether speeches, lectures and addresses can still be called
{SoQ}
in Klingon after being reduced to writing and published; they can in English.
You could also recast the sentence using the verb {ja'} "tell, report" and no
noun.
--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons