[87560] in tlhIngan-Hol
RE: Odd Requests
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Steven Boozer)
Wed Dec 30 09:40:33 2009
From: Steven Boozer <sboozer@uchicago.edu>
To: "'tlhingan-hol@kli.org'" <tlhingan-hol@kli.org>
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 2009 08:37:37 -0600
In-Reply-To: <998127.63608.qm@web24002.mail.ird.yahoo.com>
Errors-to: tlhingan-hol-bounce@kli.org
Reply-to: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
Alex Greene:
>On occasion I get asked to translate some weird things into Klingon. The
>latest was this weekend, when a friend in a state of inebriation asked me
>for help in translating "Where's the porn?"
>
>The candidate sentences are "nuqDaq 'oH *porn*'e'" and "nuqDaq *porn*
>Dapol".
>
>I did briefly wonder what the closest term was to porn, and decided on
>*bel lutmey* until a better alternative comes along.
Since Trek is a G-rated family show, it's not surprising that there's not a lot of relevant vocabulary. Some suggestions:
*{nga'chuqmeH lut} story for having sex
*{ngaghmeH lut} story for mating
*{parmaq lut} also comes to mind, from {parmaq} "the Klingon term for an aggressive sort of romantic feeling" (KGT 207), i.e. "lust".
Considering the nature of their mating habits, Klingon porn may well be in verse:
TKQW 17: Poetry plays a prominent role in Klingon mating behavior. The female typically roars, throws heavy objects, and claws at her partner. The male reads love poetry and, as Worf put it, “ducks a lot”.
KGT 78: "The {bang bom}, or "love song" (though a more literal, and perhaps telling, translation is "beloved's song") plays an important role in Klingon courting behavior, though exactly how it fits in depends on the particular tradition being followed, and this depends, for the most part, on the region in which one or the other of the participants in the courtship ritual grew up.
If so, substitute {bom} "song, chant" (also "poem"?) for {lut} "story". A *{parmaq bom} could well be more explicit than a {bang bom}.
As for visual cyber-porn, substitute {HaSta} "visual display (on monitor)" in the above examples.
Also, I did find two non-canonical sex-related words in my notes:
{meyvaQ} a sex aid [Based on context in the book, this would appear
to be a "toy" and not a "drug". (KRAD: Enemy Territory)]
*{SIy'loH} *seloh*, sex (the act) STE [Pronounced /SEE-low/. Apparently
appears in the script of TNG "Sins of the Father", but wasn't heard
in the episode. (ghunchu'wI')
--
Voragh
Canon Master of the Klingons
