tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Jan 24 10:54:12 2006
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Re: HIvchuq
Voragh:
> chorghSaD qelI'qam HIvchuq'e' vInoH
> Estimating attack range in 8,000 kellicams. (ST5)
Philip:
> Does that mean that {HIvchuq} is canon for "attack range"? I don't
> have that in my wordlist (only {HIv} (v.) and {chuq} (n.) as separate
> words).
Voragh:
>We've ever seen it written officially IIRC so we don't know if it's one
>word {HIvchuq} or two words {HIv chuq}. But there's {HIvDuj} "attack
>fighter" (KGT & HQ 1.3). It appears to be another of those odd verb + noun
>compounds like {QongDaq} "bed", or evidence of an hitherto unattested,
>possibly obsolete, noun.
>
>BTW we also have {HIvHe} "attack course" (n.) from the same movie with the
>same caveats:
>
> HIvHe yIchoHmoH!
> Alter the attack course! ST5
Philip:
>Define "from the movie" -- was the spelling used in subtitles or
>closed-captioning? Was it obtained from a production script? Or where
>did the spelling come from?
It's from my own transcription, checked and refined over the years by
others who've transcribed the Klingon lines from the movie themselves and
discussed in detail here on the List.
As it happens subtitles, captioning and scripts are not reliable and have
their own problems. Over the years we've seen much distorted tlhIngan Hol
due to either sloppy keyboarding by a typist or, more likely, an attempt to
provide a more user-friendly phonetic transcription for the actors. If
we're lucky, the text can be reconstructed fairly easily. (And let's not
even talk about closed captions being distorted into alpha-numeric
gibberish during transmission!)
The only unequivocal and authoritative written text would be Okrand's own
notes which he sent to Paramount. Occasionally Okrand quotes a line from
one of the movies in HolQeD which we can use as a check or to add
punctuation to our transcriptions.
>(If it originated from a transcription of spoken words that someone
>heard and wrote down, for example, all spelling is a matter of
>conjecture anyway.)
No. Except for names, it isn't. We know the rules of Okrand's
transcription system, we know how existing vocabulary is spelled (from the
TKD and KGT glossaries), and we know the grammar and affixes so we're
pretty confident when transcribing Okrand's dialogue - except on minor
points, such as whether {HIvchuq} and {HIvHe} is one word or two. But
since we know {HIvDuj} is in the lexicon, the one word version seems more
likely by a "preponderance of the evidence" (as they say in those TV court
shows).
That's not to say we've never been wrong. For years most of us used
*{'IwHIq} since the Standard term was almost always spelled "bloodwine", so
some of use were surprised when Okrand eventually published it as two words
{'Iw HIq} in KGT and HolQeD 13.1. But we accepted it and were able to
adjust our transcriptions:
HIq qIj reghuluS 'Iw HIq ghap jab
They serve Black Ale or Regulan bloodwine. CK
BTW, the text of CK and PK have also never been officially published
AFAIK. Would you have us discount all of that data? Fortunately for us
Okrand's pronunciation in the tapes is much clearer than that of the actors
in the movies and episodes.
--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons