tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon May 21 09:22:05 2001
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Re: Klingon WOTD: qay'be' (excl)
>Klingon word: qay'be'
>Part of Speech: exclamation
>Definition: No problem!
I don't have TKD with me. Is it in the appended List of Useful Expressions?
ghunchu'wI':
: {qay'be'} is an exclamation? Says who? It looks like a run-of-the-mill
: verb to me. "It is not a problem."
It showed up in ST6:
qay'be'. Daq Sovbejbe'taH qIrq.
[It does not matter.] Kirk cannot know the location...
Qov once reported to the List:
"I remember hearing, I *think* from Marc Okrand himself, that {qay'be'}
was created in honour of a member of the tech crew on one of the movie
sets who said "no problem" in response to all requests."
I have it glossed as "It's not a problem" as well as "No problem!" in my
notes.
In his discussion of the slang verb {qu'} "be great, be wonderful, be
excellent, be superlative, be splendid" in KGT (p.159), Okrand says that it is
also used as an exclamation by itself. In this case {qu'!} could also be
legitimately translated as a complete sentence with an indefinite subject "It's
great! That's splendid!" etc., as well as the abbreviated "Great! Splendid" --
like {Do'Ha'} which Okrand has translated both as "it is unfortunate, that is
unfortunate" as well as just "Unfortunate".
Why can't a complete, grammatical thought (i.e. verb plus prefix) be an
exclamation -- particularly if it is frequently by itself, like {Do'Ha'} or
{buy' ngop!}? Where does Okrand say that *only* nouns, expletives and
adverbials can be used as exclamations in Klingon?
--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons