[tlhIngan Hol] pseudo-Klingon words from the paq'batlh

nIqolay Q niqolay0 at gmail.com
Tue Jul 2 10:37:33 PDT 2019


On Tue, Jul 2, 2019 at 9:35 AM mayqel qunen'oS <mihkoun at gmail.com> wrote:

> IF IT'S NOT FROM OKRAND I  D-O  N-O-T  A-C-C-E-P-T  I-T.
>

Why not?

Klingonists invent new words all the time. I'm pretty sure the word
*turuqqangqa'moHtaHneS'a'* "Are you all still willing to burp me again,
your honors?" has never once been written by any Klingonist before, Okrand
or otherwise. But nobody minds, because it follows the rules that were laid
out in TKD for forming new words. Start with a root word, add some prefixes
and suffixes, now you have a new longer word. Someone else might prefer to
render that phrase in another way (such as not at all), but their attempt
will also be based on the rules set down in TKD. We do this so often we
don't even usually think of it as creating a new word.

In the case of transliterations, we don't have formal rules. But we have
plenty of examples to learn how Okrand does it: which sounds are
transliterated to which Klingon sounds, how to handle consonant clusters,
to start with the native word for countries and places rather than the
English, and so on. There are still a few questions about his style of
transliteration, but we have questions for the application of suffixes too,
and we still use those. It's possible someone might not know what you're
getting at, but we have that issue with unusual combinations of suffixes.
Our understanding of transliteration isn't quite as precise as it is for
affixation, but I think it's just a difference in quantity, not quality.
Making a good-faith effort to adhere to Okrand's style when transliteration
seems to me like any other form of using canon principles to write
something new.

As for consensus, *potlhbe'*. Most of the phrases in your translation
aren't going to be the exact same as they would be if someone else
translated it. And the transliterations don't need to be the same someone
else would use. Just be consistent with yourself. The Gospel of Mark is
supposed to be a mostly self-contained thing, after all. Transliterating
Jesus's name as *QIStoS* or *yeSwa' bar yoSev* or *na'Saretlhngan 'I'eySoS*
is presumably less important than explaining to the reader why he's worth
writing about in the first place.
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