tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Dec 27 23:53:40 2011
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Re: [Tlhingan-hol] Klingon Word of the Day: ma'
On Sat, Dec 24, 2011 at 16:01, qurgh lungqIj <[email protected]> wrote:
> Klingon Word of the Day for Saturday, December 24, 2011
>
> Klingon word: ma'
> Part of speech: verb
> Definition: accommodate
Supposedly from Marc Okrand accommodating Paramount in changing the
parsing of {qama'pu' jonta' neH} from "I told you, engines only!" to
"Wanted prisoners!".
As I understand it, {-pu'} used to be a simple past tense suffix and
{ma'} meant something like "tell", so {qama'pu'} was "I told you". Now
{qama'pu'} is "I have accommodated you" :)
(In addition to its noun meaning, "prisoners".)
Further as I understand it, this one sentence is the origin of clipped
Klingon, of the fact that {neH} does not use {'e'} in the
sentence-sentence construction, of the suffix {-ta'} "accomplished,
done", and of the plural suffix {-pu'} for beings capable of language.
(I wonder where the plural {-Du'} for body parts comes from? Does it
predate {-pu'} or did it come later?)
Someone who knows their Klingon history better, please correct me on
any of this.
Cheers,
Philip
--
Philip Newton <[email protected]>
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