[92714] in tlhIngan-Hol
[Tlhingan-hol] a tiny information from Maltz
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Lieven Litaer)
Sun Apr 1 03:29:49 2012
Date: Sun, 01 Apr 2012 09:29:24 +0200
From: Lieven Litaer <lieven.litaer@web.de>
To: "tlhingan-hol@kli.org" <tlhingan-hol@kli.org>
Errors-To: tlhingan-hol-bounces@stodi.digitalkingdom.org
Hi Dear Klingonists,
some of us have been working on the translation of Facebook recently, =
and Maltz has been watching us. Some things are really hard to =
translate, but Maltz did not really want to help. He was a real =
curmudgeon lately, in Klingon: {'I'SeghIm}.
One interesting thing he could say was how to form languages, which is =
always "country + Hol", not "country + ngan + Hol".
This is not an april's fool, by the way ;-)
Lieven.
-------- Original-Message --------
Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2012 03:53:42 -0400
From: Marc Okrand
To: Klingonischkurs Saarbr=FCcken <info@qephom.de>
[...]
As for your specific questions... I can give only a partial answer =
right now. Maltz has been kind of a curmudgeon lately. (Do you know =
that English word? The closest Klingon equivalent is 'I'SeghIm.)
Nevertheless, Maltz said that for language names the construction =
"country + Hol" is most common (so he preferred DoyIchlan Hol). Of =
course, it doesn't have to be a "country." It could be a region or a =
political unit or alliance of another kind (which is why DIvI' Hol fits =
in). He noted that tlhIngan Hol is really a shortened form of tlhIngan =
wo' Hol, but nobody ever says that in everyday speech.
If one were to say vulqangan Hol ("Vulcan's language" or "Vulcans' =
language"), that could mean the same thing as vulqan Hol, so the speaker =
would generally not be misunderstood, but if at an intergalactic =
gathering a Vulcan were speaking Federation Standard, then vulqangan Hol =
for that Vulcan at that time and place would be DIvI' Hol. There is no =
such thing as qa'naDa' Hol, but qa'naDa'ngan Hol might refer to DIvI' =
Hol or vIraS Hol (or Cree or Inuit or many other languages).
So Maltz thought it best to avoid the -ngan construction for language names.
I'll have to get back to you about names of days of the week. Maltz was =
very familiar with jaj wa' being used for "Sunday" in the publicity for =
the Star Trek Experience in Las Vegas. He said he assumed that whoever =
used that translation was catering to Americans who were used to =
considering Sunday the first day of the week, but the way the Klingon =
system and all of the Earth systems he had heard of overlaid on each =
other was complex (then he mumbled something about tlhIngan Hoghmey and =
wandered off). When I next find him in a talkative mood, I'll try to =
figure out what he was referring to.
[...]
- Marc
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