tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Mar 03 08:28:26 2004

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Re: chuv

Steven Boozer ([email protected]) [KLI Member] 

...Paul:
> >> De'wI'?
> >
> >Ooo, yeah.  We have /De'/ as a noun (data, information), but /De'wI'/
> >looks like it would indicate there should be some kind of verb /De'/,
> >which apparently we don't have...  Interesting.

Quvar:
>In turkish (which I'm learning at the moment) there is a suffix with a 
>similar meaning that can be attached to nouns. For instance "kebap" is a 
>turkish dish, a "kebapci" is someone who makes and sells them.
>
>A {De'wI'} is literally "thing which does data". I think that's pretty 
>close, don't you?  :-)
>
>Another possible [theoretical] Klingon ethymology is that this is as usual 
>a shortened form of something
>like {De' **wI'}, a "data **er".

Krankor (and others) postulate an unattested or obsolete (Old Klingon?) 
verb *{De'} "to compute".
If is obsolete, it may have been replaced by the "modern" words {SIm} 
"calculate".  (We also have {chel} "add" and {togh} "count".)

I haven't been following this thread, so I don't know whether anyone's 
quoted Okrand WRT theoretical etymologies on startrek.klingon (June 1997) 
on the much-discussed {QongDaq} "bed":

   [{QongDaq} could be a normal compound noun'--but the important word there
   is "could": It could be a compound noun IF both {Qong} and {Daq} are nouns.
   We know that {Daq} "place" is a noun; we know that {Qong} is a verb 
("sleep");
   we don't know that {Qong} (presumably "sleep" or "sleeping") is a noun. 
Maybe
   it is--but until we see it as a noun in its own right (that is, in a place
   in a sentence where nouns occur and in a construction where it's not 
attached
   to {Daq}) will we know for sure. Until that time, it's a good 
hypothesis, but
   not a done deal... a word like {QongDaq} is evidence that at an earlier 
stage
   in the language, there may have been a noun {Qong} (meaning "sleep" or some-
   thing similar). Or maybe there was a verb suffix {-Daq} meaning "place where
   one does X". On the other hand, you may have uncovered evidence that 
there is
   currently a noun {Qong}--it just hasn't been attested anywhere else yet, so
   we should keep our eyes peeled. But without further evidence, it's a guess.



-- 
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons

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