tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Dec 14 11:23:12 2009
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Re: Facebook in Klingon
Heh. Just noticed the wordplay in <<pa' reD>>
One Spanish word for wall is "pared"
So I expect the rest to have puns in them as well though I don't see
them myself.
On Dec 14, 2009, at 11:26 AM, Steven Boozer <[email protected]>
wrote:
> De'vID:
>>> or, in the more specialized terminology of sites
>>> like Facebook, how to express "Wall-to-Wall" or "Friend Request"? I
>>
>> What are the canonical references to the terms <reD> and <tlhoy'>
>> (<pa'
>> reD>, <chevwI' tlhoy'>, <pIn tlhoy'>)?
>
> Here's Okrand's post:
>
> ----------------------------------------
> From: Marc Okrand <...>
> Newsgroups: startrek.klingon
> Date: Mon, 7 Dec 1998 00:55:46 -0500
> Subject: Re: walls
>
> TPO [DloraH] wrote ...
>> I'm working on a literary piece that makes many references to a wall
>> or walls. Any ideas how I can handle this? (recast, metaphor, ...)
>
> Actually, there are several words referring to "wall":
>
> An interior wall (such as a wall separating your living room from your
> kitchen) is a tlhoy'.
>
> An exterior wall (that is, a wall which separates the inside of a
> building
> from the outside) is a reD.
>
> For the interior side of an exterior wall, it is quite common to use
> tlhoy', but the phrase pa' reD, literally "room's exterior wall"
> (pa' "room") is also heard, referring to the wall in a room which
> faces
> outside (as opposed to the other walls in the room whose other sides
> are
> still indoors).
>
> The wall around a city is a yergho, which is apparently derived from
> yer "domain, holdings, territory" plus gho "circle."
>
> A wall which divides a territory into parts (such as the Berlin
> Wall) is
> also called a tlhoy', even though neither side of it is the interior
> of
> a structure. On occasion, for clarity, such a wall is termed a
> chevwI'
> tlhoy' "separator wall") or a pIn tlhoy', literally "boss wall,"
> presumably
> dating back to a time when each subterritory had a specific person
> in charge.
>
> The phrase pa' tlhoy' "room's interior wall" is also heard from time
> to
> time, but usually only when it is necessary to distinguish the
> "interior
> wall" sense of tlhoy' from the "separator wall" sense.
>
> A tlhoy' "interior wall" need not be vertical. In a multistory
> structure, the stories are separated by what Klingon architects and
> builders call a tlhoy' SaS "horizontal wall". The side of this "wall"
> which is the bottom of the upper story is the rav "floor"; the side
> which is the top of the lower story is the rav'eq "ceiling" (based
> on rav "floor" plus 'eq, an element otherwise unknown (there is no
> evidence it is connected to 'eq "be early").
>
> rav "floor" is also used for the floor of a room on ground level (or a
> basement floor, for that matter), even though there is no
> corresponding
> rav'eq and no tlhoy' SaS.
>
> Similarly, though in general rav'eq "ceiling" refers to the ceiling
> of a
> room that has a room above it, it may also be used for the ceiling
> of a
> room on the top floor, even though there is no corresponding rav and
> no
> tlhoy' SaS. On occasion, though, the ceiling of the top floor is
> called
> pa' beb, literally "room's roof" (from pa' "room" plus beb "roof").
> The term beb refers to the covering on top of a structure.
>
> Hope this helps your story.
> ----------------------------------------
>
>> Also, might there be a culturally more appropriate rendition of
>> "wall-to-wall" that conveys the meaning without using the "wall"
>> terminology? (Might a Klingon, for example, decorate another's
>> <Ha'quj>
>> or hang a <no' DIr> rather than post to a "wall"?)
>>
>> One problem I can see with translating some of FB's messages is
>> that they
>> might need to be significantly rephrased to be more Klingon-like or
>> verb-centric. For example, for "You have N friend requests",
>> something
>> like <jupchaj Damoj 'e' lupoQ N nuvpu'> might be better than a
>> literal
>> translation.
>
> I've never seen FaceBook, but how about using *{jup bey'} "friend
> display"? See:
>
> bey' ceremonial display KGT
> betleH bey' bat'leth Display KCD
> nuH bey' Pride of Weapons (a ceremonial display of weapons) KCD
> quv bey' Honor Display (a ceremonial display of weapons) KCD
>
>
>
> --
> Voragh
> Canon Master of the Klingons
>
>
>