Re: "Floreat Majestas"

["Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@mail.com>]

On Wed, May 08, 2002 at 04:32:28PM -0500, Steven Boozer wrote:
> The more practical reason is simply to make looking words up easier.  The 
> listing is "prosper, be prosperous - {chep}" in the English-to-Klingon side 
> so someone can find "prosper" under the P's.  
Yes, but Dr. Okrand also did that for ordinary adjectives that have
no corresponding English verb - for instance, "new, be new" under
the Ns.  You can make looking words up easier without requiring
two distinct forms - it just so happens that "prosperous" had a
convenient verb form in English.

Of course, you're right that the inclusion probably went the other
way - he wanted to include "prosper" because of the slogan, and
found it fell naturally into the adjectival mode with "prosperous'.

> Okrand has done it in two ways if you're interested:
> 
>    yIn nI' yISIQ 'ej yIchep  (Radio Times)
> 
>    yItaH 'ej yIcheptaH  (UPN Star Trek 25th Anniv Special)
That is interesting.  It seems to me that something with -jaj would
be more appropriate than an actual imperative.  The English is in
appearance a pair of imperatives, but it is also shorthand for the
longer form "May you live long and prosper", which I believe has
been heard occasionally in that form in Trek canon.

--
marqoS <markjreed@mail.com>