[tlhIngan Hol] XQeD -> Xtej

De'vID de.vid.jonpin at gmail.com
Fri Jul 26 08:34:25 PDT 2019


On Thu, 25 Jul 2019 at 16:16, nIqolay Q <niqolay0 at gmail.com> wrote:

> *ghaytan mu' qID meqna' 'oHbe' meqvetlh'e'. Dochmey loS roSqa'tejpu' 'e'
> vIrIch neH vIneH.*
>

Your use of {roSqa'tej} reminded me of something.

At the 2014 Saarbrücken {qepHom'a'} (and possibly on other occasions),
Okrand made a remark along the lines that, generally, if there's a {QeD},
there's a corresponding {tej}. Sometimes he explicitly reveals a {tej} for
a {QeD}, but sometimes he doesn't.

Do people who maintain lexicons for themselves generally add the
corresponding {tej} when a {QeD} is revealed, for consistency and
convenience? I'm in the unusual position* that I maintain a lexicon (the
{boQwI'} database) which is used mostly by other people, so if I have an
entry for "quantum physicist" (because Okrand revealed {'otlhQeD} and
{'otlhtej} together), and an entry for {HapQeD} "physics" but *not* a
corresponding entry for {Haptej} "physicist", it looks inconsistent.

"Physicist", "chemist", and "genealogist" are common enough words, and
their Klingon etymology obvious enough, that I'm going to add entries for
them. However, I'm hesitant to add "archaeologist" or "geneticist" since
the {QeD} isn't attached to a known word in {roSqa'QeD} or {rayQeD}. Or
would people accept {roSqa'tej} and {raytej} as legitimate "dictionary
words" under the {XQeD} -> {Xtej} rule-of-thumb?

(In the other direction: Is there anyone who would *not* accept {Haptej}
for "physicist", simply because Okrand didn't *explicitly* write it out
somewhere, despite the fact that Okrand explained the rule for deriving it,
and explicitly revealed the pair {'otlhQeD}-{'otlhtej} for a *specific*
type of physicist?)

I'm on the fence about  {DI'ruj tej}, which would be something like
"metaphysicist" or "metaphysician", because it's kind of an obscure word in
English. Should I add an entry for it?

I suppose I'm not completely consistent, because another productive rule is
that any place name can have {ngan} attached. But I'm not adding terms for
"Londoner", "Berliner" (the person, not the doughnut), etc., because
they're both obvious and numerous.

*Besides {boQwI'}, the only popular Klingon lexicons used by many people
(which I'm aware of) are hol.kag.org and klingonska.org. The KLI new words
list is different from these in that its mission is to document only new
words revealed (explicitly) by Okrand, so it makes that that list would
have {'otlhtej} but not {Haptej}, if Okrand revealed the former but not the
latter.

-- 
De'vID
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