tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Sep 02 07:36:35 2004

Back to archive top level

To this year's listing

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

Re: klin zha

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

RNButler2 wrote:

>I am reading a tos novel and ran across a klingon word

John Ford's version of Klingon (*klingonaase*) was used here and there in 
his novel _The Final Reflection_ and his FASA role-playing game materials, 
as well as by the various pro and fan authors writing in Ford's TFR 
"universe" (most notably, Ann K. Schwader's Neysa and Karan series).  See 
the interview "John Ford on Klingonaase" in HolQeD 4.2 (June 
1995).  *Klingonaase* has no relation whatsoever with Marc Okrand's 
{tlhIngan Hol} and was not used by Paramount.  They are totally different 
languages.

>can any one tell me is there a literal translation of klin zha?

*klin zha*  "the Klingon game" is the Klingon version of chess, played on a 
triangular board.  Ford mentions several game pieces: the lance, blockader, 
fencer, swift, flier and vanguard.

There are several versions of the game known, among them *klin zha kinta* 
"the [Klingon] game with live pieces."  It's *klin zha* played as a 
stylized combat game, like living chess but deadlier.  *Komerex zha* or the 
Perpetual Game (lit. the "empire game") is a metaphor for the universal, 
perpetual, political game of empire.  A popularly held belief is that life 
(or society) itself is a game in progress, continually 
changing.  (Interestingly, Ford's name for the Klingon homeworld is 
*Klinzhai*.)

In Ford's universe, other races have their own distinctive *zhai* 
"games":  *human zha* "chess (lit. "the Human game"), *rom zha* "the 
Romulan game* (also called *latrunculo* by Ford) and *plen zha* "the 
trader's game" (from his FASA supplements).



-- 
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons

Back to archive top level