tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jan 28 15:25:17 2002

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RE: qepHom, qep, qep'a'

For what it's worth, I've always considered {HISlaH} to be something Okrand 
wrote to backfit something an actor said who couldn't pronounce {HIja'}, and 
{'a} always sounded distinctly unKlingon, considering it is one of perhaps half 
a dozen Klingon words ending in a vowel and seems entirely too common a word to 
deserve such an exceptional pronunciation. I've always said {'ach}.

charghwI'

> Lawrence:
> 
> >>>>>>>>>
> Actually, I disagree, though it may sound odd after my rant above. This is 
one of those
few examples where it would be most interesting to examine the kind of 
connotative
meanings that have emerged from Terrans who have acquired Klingon. Granted, 
there are few
of them, but even so certain patterns of usage, agreed upon connotations, 
preferences
among synonyms,and so on, have appeared.
> 
> A couple examples:
> 
> 1) the general preference for using HIja' for "yes" (despite the potentially 
ambiguous
homophonous imperative) over HISlaH. [Personally, I prefer HISlaH, and I've 
noted that Tad
seems to as well. Hmm... maybe its a Pennsylvannia thing.]
> 
> 2) choosing to use pI' over ror (or vice versa) for "be fat" when I know of 
no denotative
distinction between the two.
> 
> Certainly there are more, but these quickly leap to mind.
> 
> Hmmm.. the more I think on this, the more the researcher in me wants to 
design a study to
actually map these patterns of usage. Hmm...
> >>>>>>>>>>
> 
> I'll add my favorite example - <'ach> is almost universally used in written 
Klingon, but
<'a> is used about half the time in spoken Klingon.
> 
> pagh
>

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