[tlhIngan Hol] Qongchu', ngavyaw' mach

[nIqolay Q]

On Tue, Dec 10, 2019 at 11:05 AM mayqel qunen'oS <mihkoun at gmail.com> wrote:

> lieven:
> > Becaue I think it's larger than a {qovIj}.
>
> maj. I was just wondering, whether 'oqranD had added to {ngavyaw'} the
> additional meaning of "wolf"..
>

Technically, it's not a wolf or any Terran animal at all. It's supposed to
refer to the canine-like animals that accompanied the guards on Rura
Penthe, which Memory Alpha calls "jackal mastiffs". If you were writing
Klingon "in-character", you'd use *tera' qovIj* or *tera' ngavyaw'* to
refer to Earth animals using Klingon analogues, but sometimes people drop
the *tera'* if they're talking about day-to-day experiences with Earth
animals. There's no chance for confusion, since *ngavyaw'mey* do not,
strictly speaking, actually exist.

There's no official distinction yet for whether a given Earth canine would
be a *tera' qovIj* or a *tera'* *ngavyaw'*. Many people who make a
distinction seem to base their reasoning on the size of the Earth animal,
and also the puns. (We know that a *qovIj* is smaller than a *ngavyaw'*.
*ngavyaw'* is a pun based on a literary wolf dog, whereas *qovIj* is a pun
based off a stereotypical pet dog name.) Using *ngavyaw'* for a wolf isn't
exactly canon. It's probably closer to the unofficial but widespread use of
*jabbI'ID* "data transmission" as a term for "email".
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