tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Jan 03 09:43:16 2013

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Re: [Tlhingan-hol] who writes the Klingon wikibooks?

Steven Boozer ([email protected])



De'vID:
> While doing something else[1], I ran across these Klingon
> "wikibooks": http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Klingon/My_first_Klingon 
>     [...]
> The first makes the dubious claim that {Qu'vatlh} is composed of
> {Qu'} plus {vatlh}, and the second repeats the claim. It's just
> speculation, isn't it?

AFAIK This was first put out on the web by Kevin A. Geiselman (I believe sometime in the early 1990's):

  {Qu'} is "task", {vatlh} is "hundred". {Qu'vatlh}, "a hundred
  tasks". Certainly a curse at having many things to accomplish
  and not enough resources to accomplish them. I personally
  use this one in my own job.

Geiselman's speculations on the etymology of Klingon curses have been quoted and re-quoted all over the web which makes them easy to find by anyone doing a quick Internet search.

The _Star Trek Encyclopedia_ noted a possible derivation (coming from the writers?):

  *qu'vatlh*:  Klingon animal noted for stubbornness, much
  as the Earth mule is. ("Sons and Daughters" [DS9])

Marc Okrand commented in "Conversational Klingon":

  This [{Qu'vatlh}] is something you might hear someone say
  in moments of extreme anger. Be concerned if you hear it.

and in TKD (p.178):

  The invective {va} is actually just a shortened form of
  {Qu'vatlh}.

Finally, Lawrence posted in HolQeD 11.3 (September 2002) that:

  On his drive up to attend {qep'a' HutDIch}, it is believed
  that Marc Okrand was in communication with Maltz (the
  precise mechanics responsible for this are unknown and
  unimportant to the present concern). Traffic along the
  interstate was particularly heavy, a topic which at some
  point entered into the conversation. Dr. Okrand reports
  that Maltz volunteered the Klingon term {Hutvagh}, a noun,
  meaning "too many people or things in a place all at once".
  Maltz further indicated that the term was used as word
  play, a substitution for the more common {Qu'vatlh} which
  might otherwise be heard in such situations.

[That he was driving along I-95, the interstate highway between Washington D.C. and Philadelphia, was entirely coincidental. <g>]

The word itself seems to come from TNG "The Mind's Eye":  When Picard failed to convince Governor Vagh that the Federation was not supplying weapons to Kriosian rebels, Vagh shouted: "You speak the lies of a *tah-keck*!"  Picard calmly leaned forward and replied, "*Qu'vatlh guy'cha b'aka!*"  Vagh complimented him, saying: "You swear well, Picard.  You must have Klingon blood in you."  [spelling from Closed Captions]



--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons


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