[tlhIngan Hol] New words from "Miniatur Wunderland"

[nIqolay Q]

On Mon, Apr 1, 2019 at 9:43 PM qurgh lungqIj <qurgh at wizage.net> wrote:

> This is always the case. My statement wasn't that {-Hom} always creates
> some new, seperate, concept, it's that {-Hom} never means just "small" by
> itself. There has to be more to it.
>

There *can* be more to it, and often is, but I don't see anything that
suggests there *has* to be more to it. For some nouns, *-Hom* might suggest
things besides size, because they're the sort of noun that has a lot of
"variables". For example, words referring to living things not only have
size, but also maturity as a characteristic distinct from size. In this
case, it might be preferable to use *mach* instead of *-Hom* if you mean
"small", because there are other aspects of the noun that could be
"lessened" that you don't intend to.

On the other hand, some nouns are just mundane objects, and size might be
the only variation among them. Like these two:

A {bo'DaghHom} could be a "serving spoon" instead of a just a small
> ladle-like scoop, or it might be a specific Klingon utensil we don't know
> about get.
>

It's just translated as "small scoop" in KGT (and *bo'Dagh'a'* is
translated as "big scoop"). In this case, it seems clear that *-Hom* just
means "small" by itself. Scoops don't really vary in terms of importance or
intensity or maturity. They're just scoops.


> A {naQHom} is a "twig", not a just "small stick".
>

A *naQHom* is mentioned in KGT as the small stick you hit an *'In* with.
It's just a small stick. A twig would be a *naQHom*, but not all *naQHommey*
are twigs. Like I said earlier, I think part of this issue is because it's
easier to give different English glosses for words with *-Hom* on the end,
giving the impression that there's some underlying conceptual difference. A
*DoQmIv* is a basin or container for holding water
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xh5vM-jDFRs&feature=youtu.be&t=46s>, and a
*DoQmIvHom* is a small basin or container for holding water. But since
*DoQmIv* was originally glossed as "sink" and *DoQmIvHom* was glossed as
"something like a bucket", we start associating *-Hom* with the differences
between a sink and a bucket (not fixed in place, no faucets, no drain),
rather than understanding "bucket" as an example of the size of a thing
that is a *DoQmIvHom*.
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