[87309] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: "Authentic" Klingon materials
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Christopher Doty)
Mon Nov 30 15:57:42 2009
In-Reply-To: <f1d476f10911301208v14d9f191xc5d10788a3236da@mail.gmail.com>
From: Christopher Doty <suomichris@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 30 Nov 2009 12:55:29 -0800
To: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
Errors-to: tlhingan-hol-bounce@kli.org
Reply-to: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 12:08, ghunchu'wI' 'utlh <qunchuy@alcaco.net> wrote:
>
> http://www.kli.org/study/jatmey.html describes many such attempts (all
> successful). There is also the short story {jubHa'}, which appears in
> the third volume of the _Strange New Worlds_ anthology series.
>
>> Has anyone ever, say, made up a meter for Klingon and tried
>> to write poetry in that meter about uber-Klingon themes?
>
> Mark Mandel invented a poetic form he called {puSlogh vagh}, though I
> don't recall his using it for specifically Klingon ideas.
Thanks for these; I'll take a look.
>> Also, question about <paqbatlh>: Memory Alpha gives it as meaning "the
>> honor of the book," but wouldn't a more accurate English translation
>> be "the honorable book"?
>
> No, for two reasons. First, {batlh} isn't a verb that can be used
> adjectivally the way {quv} can. Second, we don't know any way to
> reasonably form noun-verb compounds, so even if it were {paqquv}
> instead, we can't be sure of pulling it apart accurately. The only
> straightforward translation has to be as the compound noun
> "book-honor", with the option of making it flow a little more smoothly
> in English as "book's honor" or "honor of the book".
>
> (For what it's worth, the word {paqbatlh} was obviously a botched
> attempt by Voyager's scriptwriters to say "book of honor" in Klingon.)
That was kind of what I was thinking. At the least, we can handwave
and say "Well, maybe in older Klingon, the genitive/noun-noun
construction have the opposite order, so it used to mean the honored
book, but now it is just funny." Or we can say that in our heads to
make us feel better about it, anyway.
