tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jan 11 06:58:16 2010

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RE: Hypothetical (reconstructed) vocabulary?

Steven Boozer ([email protected])



Voragh:
>> Over the weekend I began compiling a list of hypothetical (reconstructed)
>> vocabulary, chiefly from compound nouns.  
>>    [....]
>> Right now I'm trying collect the various candidates so I can tag them as
>> "hypothetical" in my notes.  (We can quibble about what - if anything -
>> they mean a bit later.)  Here's what I have so far:
>>
>> *SoSbor  (computer) core, ICU, mainframe? (n.) < SoSbor'a'

lay'tel SIvten:
> While trying to come up with a different interpretation of *{pIv}, I
> noticed that you included {SoSbor} in your list. My list notes that
> both {SoSbor} and {SoSbor'a'} are in the main New Words List and on
> the BoP poster as 'motherboard' and 'main core', respectively.
> maHvatlh's *tlhIngan Hol mu'ghom mach *gives {SoSbor} as just 'core'.

IIRC only {SoSbor'a'} appears on the BOP Poster:

 De'wI' SoSbor'a' 
 main computer core  (KBoP)

*{SoSbor} is Okrand's reconstructed pun "motherboard" ({SoS} "mother" + bor).  I'm not sure who added it to the New Words List since AFAIK it's never actually appeared.  

This isn't a particularly difficult reconstruction as I would assume that any {NOUN'a'} - or {NOUNHom} for that matter - implies the prior existence of the simple {NOUN} even if it's obsolete, little-used or theoretical.  

> *{pIv} could also be translated as any of the other stock science
> (fiction) terms for a faster-than-light drive: faster-than-light/FTL,
> jump, hyper(space/drive), star(drive), etc. It could even mean 'magic'
> or 'inter-'. Then there's the possibility that Klingon physicists have
> a completely different approach to physics or this area of physics as
> compared to Terran physicists. "Warp" drive, field, factor, etc., is
> an idiom, and to carry it over as a direct translation of hypothetical
> *{pIv} seems to me to be imprudent, at best. We simply don't know what
> {pIv} means. Doesn't Star Trek also have other 'warp' phrases, such as
> 'warp core'? Do we have equivalents of these in Klingon?

Here are all the Klingon "warp" phrases I know of:

{pIvchem}  warp field 

  pIvchem lIngwI' DaHmey: cha' 
  Warp Field Generation Arrays - 2 (KBoP)

  pIvchem SeHwI': cha' 
  Warp Field Controller - 2  (KBoP)

{pIvchem SeHwI'}  warp field controller 

  pIvchem SeHwI': cha' 
  Warp Field Controller - 2 (KBoP)

  pIvchem SeHwI'mey 
  warp field controllers  (KBoP)

{pIvghor}  warp drive

  pIvghor cham 
  Warp Drive technology (S33)

{pIvghor lIngwI'}  warp generator KBoP

{pIvghor lIngwI' DaH}  warp generation array KBoP

  pIvchem lIngwI' DaHmey: cha' 
  Warp Field Generation Arrays - 2 (KBoP)

{pIvghor pat}  warp drive system KBoP

{pIvlob}  warp factor 

  qughDo motlh: pIvlob vagh 
  Normal Cruising Speed - Warp 5 (KBoP)

  'aqroS qughDo: pIvlob Hut vI' vagh 
  Maximum Cruising Speed - Warp 9.5  (KBoP)

As to whether *{pIv} is the equivalent to hyperspace, et al., remember that we also have {'evnagh} "subspace" which has appeared only in the phrase {'evnagh Se'}:

  labmeH 'evnagh Se' lo' tlhIngan QumwI' 
  A Klingon communicator sends a signal through subspace radio. (S19)

  'evnagh Se' HablI'  
  subspace radio [i.e. the device] (KBoP)
 


-- 
Voragh                          
Canon Master of the Klingons






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