[87552] in tlhIngan-Hol
RE: Feast of the Long Night
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Steven Boozer)
Tue Dec 22 09:31:05 2009
From: Steven Boozer <sboozer@uchicago.edu>
To: "'tlhingan-hol@kli.org'" <tlhingan-hol@kli.org>
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 2009 08:27:55 -0600
In-Reply-To: <96fdd8280912220105w63ba1a96o266af8a51569ee5d@mail.gmail.com>
Errors-to: tlhingan-hol-bounce@kli.org
Reply-to: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
ter'eS:
>> The "Klingon Christmas Carol" that I saw recently referred to the
>> Ceremony of the Long Night, and then I saw someone's Facebook
>> status update that they are attending a Feast of the Long Night
>> (appropriate for today!). Which got me thinking, is there a
>> tlhIngan Hol equivalent of "feast"? I thought of {ram nI' lopno'},
>> but does that convey the idea of a capital-F Feast?
ghunchu'wI' 'utlh:
>> I've always used {yupma'} "festival" for that kind of meaning.
Christopher Kidder:
>Reasons we used {tay} ... "Rite" or "Ritual".
>1. The frequent use of the word Rite or Ritual in some neo-pagan
>religions for their activities on holidays. For instance, the
>"Great Rite" of Wicca, and such.
>2. {ram nI' tay} scans better than {yupma'} "festival" or {'uQ'a'}
>"Great Dinner"
Christopher reminds us that we do have {'uQ'a'} "banquet, feast":
KGT 100: Unless one is dining alone, a meal is typically quite noisy, with a great deal of talking (and often singing) accompanying the clattering of plates and bowls. This is particularly true of a {'uQ'a'} ("banquet, feast"; literally, "great dinner" or "big dinner", but used regardless of the time of day of the banquet).
If you want to avoid {tay} - though I'm not sure why you'd want to as Klingons certainly have a lot of them! - perhaps you could say {yuQ'a' nI'} "lengthy feast". {nI'} "be long, be lengthy (duration)" isn't just used with time words (poH, DaHjaj, ram, jaj, etc) but can refer to events such as songs:
KGT 78: The drinking songs are always sung loudly (this would probably be described by using the term pe'vIl [forcefully]), seldom with instrumental accompaniment, and they tend to be rather lengthy ({nI'}) and, from a non-Klingon perspective, repetitive.
... or a person's life:
nI'be' yInmaj 'ach wovqu'
Our lives burn short and bright. (Anthem)
yIn nI' yISIQ 'ej yIchep
Live long and prosper! (RT)
--
Voragh
Canon Master of the Klingons
