tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Aug 29 07:33:26 2005
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Re: Hi! I have a poster at my Klingon message board, who wants to know....
qalaa HoD:At 12:43 AM Monday 8/29/2005, you wrote:
> > "I was actually hoping someone would know what the
> > lettering on the Ceremonial Banner stands for? I love
> > the design and am considering a tattoo but would like
> > to know what, if anything, it says."
QeS la':
>I think I recall hearing something about that banner, but can't for the life
>of me remember which episode (or even what the banner was supposed to have
>said - only that a character on the show, perhaps Quark, actually gave the
>translation of what the banner was supposed to say).
>
>But even if you did read pIqaD, it'd be pretty pointless trying to read
>anything seen on the shows, since Mike Okuda has gone on record as saying
>that the Klingon texts composed for the shows are solely for visual effect,
>and don't actually mean anything (either in Klingon or in English).
qalaa:
> >Here is the best picture I could find of it.
> >
> >
> http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v179/AdmiralMudd/KCI/Banners/KlingonCeremonialBannersm.jpg
The picture's awfully small, but near as I can make out it reads:
left side: L V W
right side: Gh N Y
bottom: A V L
These are just random 3-letter groups - /gh/ is one letter in Klingon - and
mean nothing. The letters were no doubt chosen and arranged because the
set designer thought they looked nice.
Many versions of pIqaD, including cursive, can be found on the Klingonska
Akademien site (http://www.klingonska.org/piqadpic.html). This is the page
I used just now.
If you're interested, here's what I have in my notes on the the native
Klingon writing system {pIqaD}. (I don't guarantee all the links still work):
"Such carvings are sometimes just ornamental, sometimes informational (if
the Klingon writing system, {pIqaD}, is incorporated into the design),
sometimes representational." (Marc Okrand, "Klingon for the Galactic
Traveller," p.80)
"I'd love to know more about {pIqaD} as well... the Klingon romanization
system is a phonemic system, but what about {pIqaD}? How, exactly, does
{pIqaD} work? I'm not sure. Mike Okuda (who puts the characters on various
control panels and other displays for the various Star Trek series and
movies) and I have discussed it. We're pretty sure it's not an alphabet
(and it's therefore not phonemic in the way the romanized version is), but
we don't know the details. Prodding of Maltz is definitely in order here.
There is no problem with {pIqaD} being used for the various dialects,
regardless of how it works, because it does not necessarily work the same
way (or, better, the details are not necessarily the same) for all of the
dialects. Since the system has been around for a long time (if Kahless was
literate, he was literate in {pIqaD}), it could provide some insights into
earlier stages of the language. The rules for mapping the old
pronunciations represented by the {pIqaD} writing conventions onto the new
pronunciations surely differ for the different dialects, but the
rules--with varying degrees of complexity, to be sure--certainly work. I
agree with SuStel. Once we know the details of {pIqaD}, I'm sure we'll find
it a more interesting system than the romanization system we're all used
to." (Marc Okrand, startrek.klingon BBS [10/97])
At his panel in Huntsville (9/96), Marc Okrand said that while he and Okuda
didn't agree on what {pIqaD} should be like, one thing they both agreed was
that it probably wasn't a simple alphabet. "In fact, Marc Okrand has said
publicly that part of the holdup is that he and Okuda can't quite agree on
what {pIqaD} should be like... He hasn't decided if it's a syllabary or
logograms or pasigraphy or who-knows-what, but it's not an alphabet like
we've been using. (My personal excuse for our method then becomes: well,
this is a simplified alphabetical system for offworlders and certain
restricted environments that occasionally crop up, like the way Japanese is
occasionally written entirely in kana in telegrams, even though that's not
the right way to write it [and is hard to read for natives].)" (Seqram)
"Michael Okuda has always maintained that there is *no* meaning to the
written Klingon he puts on sets beyond purely aesthetic considerations."
(ghunchu'wI')
Cf. also the KLI Wiki at
</wiki/index.php?pIqaD>/wiki/index.php?pIqaD
for examples of KLI fonts.
Teresh's vocabulary program KliFlash also displays in pIqaD
(<http://www.geocities.com/teresh_2000/kliflash.html>http://www.geocities.com/teresh_2000/kliflash.html).
Glen Proechel's Interstellar Language School sells the pIqaD Exercise Book,
a booklet containing exercises for Glen's handwritten version of pIqaD
($10; see
<http://www.geocities.com/athens/8853/>http://www.geocities.com/athens/8853/ )
OpenOffice.org has a nice chart of the three major fonts available at
(<http://www.evertype.com/standards/csur/klingon.html>http://www.evertype.com/standards/csur/klingon.html).
Notes on "Using pIqaD in Windows" are at
</wiki/index.php?Using%20pIqaD%20in%20Windows>/wiki/index.php?Using%20pIqaD%20in%20Windows
.
--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons