[653] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: Klingon Sociolinguistics #1: Greetings and Partings
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Thu Apr 22 14:31:27 1993
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Reply-To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
From: Captain Krankor <krankor@codex.prds.cdx.mot.com>
To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 93 12:50:12 -0400
Klingon has only one greeting and no partings. On purpose. Even the one
greeting was added under duress. Okrand has repeatedly stressed that a
Klingon does not use a parting, he just stops talking, gets up, and leaves.
He explicitly DOES this to emphasize the point-- I've heard him end radio
interviews in precisely this manner. The one greeting, nuqneH, was added
only because people kept pestering him on how to say 'hello'. Once again:
It does NOT mean "what do you want?" except in the most limited, literal sense.
It is a greeting. Period. If someone walks up to you and says "nuqneH", it is
NOT appropriate to answer by giving a list of things you want. It's just a
greeting. Not so different from how, in English, you say, "How do you do" when
you meet someone, but you in no way mean it as the literal question "Well gee,
just how *do* you do?" In fact, it's more akin to the English "howdy", which,
as I understand it, is the vestigal remnant of a slurred and abbreviated
"how-do-you-do" (after all, to *really* ask "What do you want?" would be
nuq DaneH?). When someone says "howdy" to you, it's just a greeting; you don't
think of it as meaning a request for information about how you do.
But again, as Letty pointed out, the whole greeting/parting thing is a
cultural thing, and the culture from which the Klingon language ostensibly
derives simply does not use such things.
Isn't this stuff in the FAQ? If not, it should be.
--Krankor
