tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Dec 27 14:42:24 2011

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Re: [Tlhingan-hol] Eurotalk - New Words - Food

Robyn Stewart ([email protected]) [KLI Member] [Hol po'wI']



I read this reply before reading the author's name and assumed it was by lojmIt tI'wI' nuv, because of its conservatism, but despite my tendency to be a little liberal with the language in my stories, I agree with QeS.

nIm wIb ngogh is a valid description of milk which has undergone various processes to achieve some degree of solidity and preservation. tIr ngogh describes grain which has been ground and made into a loaf, probably through mixing with water, fat, and leavening agent. Describe further modifications to either in a way that people can understand, and you have something people can understand. Describe them in a way that is ambiguous or unclear and you have something people cannot understand.

I'll bet if we poll even just the native English speakers on this list we won't get agreement on what cheesebread is, so you'd better descrbe well. There will never be THE WORD for anything that isn't Klingon to begin with.

It's like asking an English speaker for words distinguishing among different kinds of fermented fish preserves: you just get English corruptions of lutefisk, prahok, hakarl and surstromming. Or just a look of horror and a gagging sound.

- Qov

At 07:08 27/12/2011, Rohan Fenwick - QeS 'utlh wrote:

jatlhpu' 'anan naHQun:
> bread - tIr ngogh
> cheese - nIm wIb ngogh

jang De'vID, jatlh:
> Do people agree that {nIm wIb} is the word for "cheese" (the substance
> or ingredient) and that {nIm wIb ngogh} refers to a physical block or
> lump of cheese?

Very hesitantly.

But tangentially, this "the word for" thing seems to be becoming common;
it bemuses me a little. To me, what Eurotalk seems to be doing is to say:
"Look, Klingon really *lacks* all these words. But if some Klingon speaker
were to come to Earth and see these Earth things, this is how he might
*describe* it to his friends when he got home." So I can see something
like, "Those Terrans are crazy! They eat this weird food called "cheese",
and what it is is {nIm wIb ngogh}."

But for my part, the fact that Eurotalk seems to be implying all this
makes me shy away from the thought that {nIm wIb} is now "the word for
cheese". It's just how some Klingon chose to explain what cheese is. And
that gives us some good canonical options, but I don't think we should
feel constrained by those. If someone wanted to talk about {nIm QaD} or
{nIm wIb QaDlu'pu'bogh} or {nIm roghmoHlu'pu'bogh} instead, and it gets
the point across, great. (And to me {nIm wIb} could just as well refer
to yoghurt or sour cream. Which is why I'm hesitant about agreeing that
{nIm wIb} is even *a* phrase for cheese, never mind *the* phrase.)

taH:
> What about melted cheese? (There are like a billion kinds of cheese
> with different names here in Switzerland where I'm living.)

SoHvaD Qapbe''a' {tet} "melt"?

> "cheesebread" leghDI' tlhIngan, chay' pong?

Until right now I didn't even know what to call it in English. (The only
time I've ever eaten anything like what you describe was in Georgia, so
I only knew the Georgian name for it, which is "khachapuri".)

QeS 'utlh

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