tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Jan 31 09:16:24 2012

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Re: [Tlhingan-hol] More new words from Maltz

Qov ([email protected])

Hey, the informant is a gullible gunner, not a topologist, not a mathematician, not a biologist (I'm convinced that if he knew the distinction between a vein and an artery, that Marc just didn't think to quiz him on whether an 'aD spurts or leaks blood when you cut it) and not a linguist. matlh has no idea what really makes a qung a qung and a QemjIq a QemjIq. He just knows them when he sees them. He's probably given us a smattering of vulgar misinformation, embedding shibboleths in any would-be Federation-trained spies. Much of what we say is going to be wrong register, wrong word, unknown exception and the like, but we can get it done.
I remember a young doctor in Leningrad telling me that, "In this kladbishche lie the cadavers of many important persons."
Kladbishche is cemetary. He didn't know the word in English, but knew I knew the Russian because I had just used it. We were speaking each other's language for the practice. He knew through his studies the specific English word for "dead human body." He had no idea that it was restricted to the context of medical dissection. I mean who would guess that we had a word that specialized? It's still not as cool a word as the English one meaning "to remove dead flesh from living" but we still have cool words.
Sure, try to pin down meanings, try to avoid using words where we're told they don't fit. Don't use words in a way that makes Klingon English, but don't hurt yourself trying to avoid embarrassing situations. Case in point from the same trip to Russia: I knew a Russian word denoting "male roommate." I knew a suffix useful for converting words denoting males to the female form. I boldly asked the desk clerk if my lesbian lover was in the room. One has no way of knowing these things. Speak boldly and keep your betleH sharp. 

:-)

- Qov

At 08:32 31/01/2012, you wrote:
Very true. However, I suspect the comment about QemjIqmey being fillable and qungmey not was a bit of a misdtatement; after all, one can fill most small qungmey with a bit of lam Dogh. 

I suspect the distinction is about one of two things:
1) Topology: Depressions(holes with "dead ends") are QemjIqmey, true holes are qungmey. 2) The depth of the material: Much like the way 'ab refers to "longish, skinnyish things", perhaps qungmey refer to punctures in "membranish, sheetlike things"; things with depths that are small compared to width and length.
2) strikes me as being the more natural distinction to make, alrhough I personally prefer 1). 
Neither 1) nor 2) satisfies Okrand's non-fillability criterion, however.

________________________________________
From: Terrence Donnelly [[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2012 16:34
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [Tlhingan-hol] More new words from Maltz
You're probably right in general, but I would point out that you can easily "fill" the mouth of a bottle by putting a cork or other stopper in it (I believe we have seen many bottles on Star Trek that were closed with stoppers). 

-- ter'eS

--- On Tue, 1/31/12, Lieven Litaer <[email protected]> wrote:

From: Lieven Litaer <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [Tlhingan-hol] More new words from Maltz
To: [email protected]
Date: Tuesday, January 31, 2012, 6:48 AM

ter'eS wrote:
How about QemjIq as the mouth of a bottle? Topologically it's not much different from the soundhole of a musical instrument with a soundbox.
I think of the mouth of a bottle more like a {qung}, you can put your finger through it and you cannot fill it. If you fill it, it's the bottle you fill, not its mouth. Nevertheless, I'm sure Klingons have their own word for that, or call it like you did the "mouth" of the bottle. It doesn't sound correct to say "There's a hole in the bottle." In that case it's broken :-)
By the way, I'm pretty sure you can {vegh} a {qung}, as long as it's large enough. 

Lieven.


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