tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jan 22 13:43:12 2007
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Re: Klingon WOTD: pel'aQ (noun)
Voragh:
> >> Category: Body Parts
> >
> > Is it really? If the plural of {QIm} "egg" is {QImmey} (KGT p.88), I would
> > expect the plural of {pel'aQ} to be ?{pel'aQmey} even though it's never
> > been attested. OTOH KGT p.92 says that the shell of an animal is {nagh
> > DIr} and I would expect the plural ?{nagh DIrDu'} as this
> > definitely is a body part.
Doq:
>QIm 'oH yInbogh Dol naQ. jatlhlaHbe'. vaj law'DI', QImmey DIpong.
>pel'aQ 'oH Dol 'ay'. vaj law'DI', pel'aQDu' DIpong.
>
> >> Additional Notes:
> >> KGT p. 88. Curiously, eggs ({QImmey}) do not play a large role in the
> >> Klingon diet as food items in their own right, though they are mixed into
> >> many sauces, usually along with the pieces of shell ({pel'aQ}), for flavor
> >> and texture. The small eggs of the Tokvirian [sic] skink ({toqvIr lung}),
> >> however, are often eaten whole, shell and all, usually by the handful.
>
>Mmmmmmm. toqvIr lung. ghaytan toqvIr lung QImmey vISopqa'laHpa'
>qaSqa' poH 'Iq. tera'Daq qub 'eb.
Perhaps when eggs are considered as food items, they can take the suffix
{-mey} instead of the body part suffix {-Du'}. Maybe this is because one
eats so many of them (i.e. "usually by the handful") they are no longer
viewed as body parts.
We know that use of the plural suffixes is a little fluid. Okrand
responded when I asked him about {DIrmey} and {veDDIrmey} on
startrek.klingon (3/23/1998):
If I understand Maltz correctly, it works like this: The general
plural suffix {-mey} is not used with body parts (except by poets,
of course). Thus {DIrmey} "skins" and {veDDIrmey} "pelts" are not
(or, perhaps better, are no longer) body parts, but rather are
materials from which things (clothing or blankets, for example)
may be made. They've lost their association with the creatures
that originally had them. (This is kind of like the distinction
in English between "beef", which is eaten, and "cattle", which
isn't.) If there still is that association, that is, if the
creatures still have their skin, or if it's a creature that has
multiple skins (maybe layers, maybe different kinds of skin on
different parts of the body), or if the skin just came off either
by natural causes (as with Alan Anderson's snakes) or by the
creatures being, well, skinned, then the body-part plural suffix
{-Du'} may be used: {DIrDu'}. But {DIr} alone, without a suffix,
is heard most often.
See, however, {tIqnagh lemDu'} "*tknag* hooves", a food item always
referred to in the plural known from KCD.
--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons