tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Apr 17 17:30:24 2002

Back to archive top level

To this year's listing



[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]

Re: English g -> Klingon q



Sean M. Burke wrote:

>David Trimboli wrote:
>> > >Okrand typically turns English hard "g" into /q/ (e.g., /qagh/ = "gagh").
>> > Are there other examples of that?
>>None that I can seem to think of now, which makes me regret my adverb 
>>"typically."
>
>latlh tu'lu'law' -- {qIvon}.
>
>"Talmy Givon" pong 'oH mung mu'vam'e'.  linguist qanqu' ghaH.
>Berkeleyvo' Sovchu'law' Okrand; 'a vIqIHpu' neH.  vanHomvam qotlhlaw'.

Sorry, but no cigar.  This one isn't one of Okrand's puns.  Paramount's 
writers invented *QiVon* (pronounced /KEE-von/) for an object of anatomy, 
apparently coming in pairs:  In DS9 "Blood Oath" Kor said that his left 
QiVon aches whenever his ship hits Warp Factor 8.  I'm told that the Okuda 
_Omnipedia_ identifies "QiVon" as being "another word for knee" - which is 
{qIv}.  Okrand just took Paramount's word and provided a tlhIngan Hol 
spelling for KGT, where {qIvon} is simply identified in the glossary as a 
"body part".

Okrand has back-fit several of Paramount's inventions for the use of 
fans.  Look through the Appendix to TKD (covering ST5, ST6 and the first 
season of TNG) and KGT.  Even if you're not a Trek Klingon trivia whiz, you 
can usually identify these imports by the fact that they are somewhat 
longer than the average tlhIngan Hol word, not to mention having consonant 
clusters not formally allowed in tlhIngan Hol:  e.g. {Daqtagh} d'k tahg, 
{bIraqlul} brak'lul, {bIreqtal} brek'tal, {bIreQtagh} bregit lung, 
{qItI'nga} K'Tinga, {qIvo'rIt} K'vort, etc.  Notice (1) Paramount's 
(over)use of apostrophes and (2) Okrand's frequent use of /I/ to break up 
those consonant clusters.



-- 
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons



Back to archive top level