tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Aug 13 14:19:09 2001
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Re: Very first word question !!
Qu'joy' (Susan L Joy) wrote:
: Trying for words to be used in a holistic, non traditional,
: approach for Klingon health. Hemotite for healing/soothing
Since you did not flag this message with "KLBC", I'm assuming you didn't want
to limit responses to the Beginning Grammarian.
: jI =prefix= I/none
: ghaj =(v)= have, possess
: pIv = be healthy
: nagh = stone
:
: jI + ghaj + pIv + nagh = jIghajpIv'nagh
A grammar note: Firstly, Klingon words are not all run together in writing --
at least, they're not when we're using this Federation style Roman
transcription. (How this sentence would look in {pIqaD}, the native Klingon
script, is anyone's guess.)
Second: when the verb has an object, you have to use the objective verb
prefixes, not the stand-alone prefixes. In this case you need {vI-} "I [do
something] to it/him/her/them". Thus:
pIvnagh vIghaj.
I have {pIvnagh}.
I have a {pIvnagh}.
I have the {pIvnagh}.
As Klingon has no articles, the exact English translation will depend on your
context.
: pIvnagh = be healthy stone
A vocabulary note: Unfortunately, we're not able to freely combine a verb
{pIv} "be healthy" with a noun {nagh} "stone" to make a compound noun like
this. Although there do appear to be such words listed in the Dictionary, here
on the mailing list we assume either:
1) there's an unattested homophonic noun *{pIv} which is not listed in TKD or
is obsolete in the "modern" 24th century language; or
2) the rules for forming compound nouns were different in the past, thus
explaining some odd compounds which have survived onto "modern" times.
Following the modern rules, you could call it simply *{nagh pIv}, the "healthy
stone" and trust that Klingon holistic {Qelpu'} will know what this refers to.
There's another problem in that *{pIv} also appears as a bound morpheme having
something to do with spatial warps (or hyperspace?) in {pIvchem} "warp field",
{pIvghor} "warp drive", and {pIvlob} "warp factor". Without context,
*{pIvnagh} may well be understood by space travellers as something like
"warp-stone": perhaps an alternate, historical or poetic name for dilithium
{cha'puj}. (Note BTW that there's no extra apostrophe between the two
elements. The Paramount writers freely sprinkle extra apostrophes into what
they call Klingon, in an attempt to make their words look a bit more alien; we
don't.)
I couldn't find "hemotite" in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary Online, but there
was a listing for hematite (haemotite [UK spelling]):
Main Entry: he·ma·tite
Pronunciation: 'hE-m&-"tIt
Function: noun
Date: 1540
: a mineral constituting an important iron ore and occurring in
crystals or in a red earthy form
If this is indeed the same mineral, etymology can help us find a translation.
Notice that the first part of this English word is "hemo-, haemo-", from the
Greek word for blood, which also appears in hemoglobin, hemostat, etc., because
of it's "red earthy form". Fortunately we do have a well-known noun {'Iw}
"blood" which we can legally compound with {nagh} "stone". And since Klingon
blood is also reddish or pinkish - according to whether you believe the TV
episodes or the movies - you could say *{'Iwnagh} or "bloodstone", which sounds
very Klingon indeed.
So putting this all together, we have:
'Iwnagh vIghaj.
How's that for a long answer to a simple question. <g>
--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons
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