tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Aug 19 09:51:17 2008
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RE: DuH'a' Hov leng pIvghor?
Voragh:
>> "Star Trek warp drive is a possibility, say scientists":
Mark J. Reed:
> In the context of Klingon speech, is the "Hov leng" really necessary?
It is if you're translating someone else's title. :)
> I thought "pIvghor" specifically referred to the Star Trek variety. :)
It does, of course, but do you think average speakers would differentiate it from other varieties of FTL propulsion? IOW, do you think they have a separate word for "hyperdrive" used by non-specialists or, say, Klingon sci-fi writers?
startrek.com's Star Trek: Continuum Klingon Compendium area ("Klingon Linguistic Studies") defined it as:
a propulsion system that allows a ship to travel faster than the
speed of light
Cf. also the "Star Trek Dictionary and Research Guide":
In the fictional universe of Star Trek, the warp drive is a
form of faster-than-light (FTL) propulsion. Hyperdrive and
jump drive are alternative methods of FTL travel commonly
used in fiction.
<http://www.123exp-fantasy.com/t/01804080189 >
Even within Trek, the terms are not carefully distinguished. In the original two-hour pilot "The Cage" (reworked as TOS "The Menagerie") Capt. Pike called it the "hyperdrive", but Kirk referred to the ship's "space-warp capability" in the first TOS episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before". (Anyone know why Roddenberry changed his mind about the term?)
Sometimes both terms will be used by other writers. In Lost In Space's "Visit to a Hostile Planet" the Jupiter II once accidentally accelerated beyond the speed of light into "hyperdrive"; electromagnetic radiation had opened a "space warp" which sent the ship back to 1947 Earth. But in the Stargate universe, ships have one of two types of hyperdrives (the more advanced version allows one to travel between galaxies).
BTW "warp drive" is now actually defined in the OED as:
A fictional or hypothetical propulsion mechanism which is capable
of manipulating space-time so as to travel faster than light.
(_Shorter Oxford English Dictionary_ [2002])
For even more details on the topic, see the WikiPedia article "Warp Drive" at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warp_drive
--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons