[tlhIngan Hol] Morskan and the unidentified “regional dialect” in PK

[Daniel Dadap]

> On May 14, 2019, at 08:40, Will Martin <willmartin2 at mac.com> wrote:
> 
> You are clearly going where I have never gone before. Frankly, I never even THOUGHT of going there.

Your message flatters me, but honestly I don’t think learning Morskan is *that* wild if an endeavor if one is already learning standard Klingon. There aren’t major lexical differences (that we know of) and only one known, and relatively tame, grammatical difference. Anybody who reads the brief description of Morskan in KGT should have little trouble composing or understanding text in that dialect, provided they’re already somewhat familiar with the standard one.

Now if you want to know about a Klingon language variant that *really* has a small population of speakers, I’m aware of one (not created by Dr. Okrand and obviously not canonical) with a lexicon, grammar, and phonology that is familiar enough that most skilled Klingonists ought to be able to understand it reasonably well with a fairly short period of adjustment, but different enough that I expect that it would be a challenge to extract meaning from text composed in this language without knowing the rules up front. Not an impossible challenge, but a challenge nevertheless. I’ll refrain from describing it in more detail, as the person who devised this language has not shared any details about it in public, and may have done so out of minor embarrassment over how incredibly geeky it is.

Anyway, in case you’re curious, the Morskan project is a restoration of the original Morskan lyrics for some well known songs from a particular Earth musical genre. It seemed appropriate to do them in a regional dialect. Here’s an example of one of the songs; I will leave the translation to the standard dialect and identification of the corresponding Terran song as an exercise to the reader:

pIch ghaj mungwIj

SeQ lopno'lIj

vIqaghpu'DI' DaS Hop vItuQ

SovwI' Hav jI

pawwI' Hav jI

pa' chotu' 'e' Dahonmo' qanuQ

gha vImer 'e' vItu'

vIghIj 'e' 'agh mInDu'

'Iw hIq hIvje' vIglhap 'ej vIpep

ghIq SovaD jIjats

Da chaq banglI' gha lats

'ach not ghu'vammo' jIbep



Daq quvha'Daq chata 'op jupwI'

pa' SengmeywIj hata hIq Seng bI'-

chu'mo' je hIq haw'

vaj pa' jIbaw'

loQ nugh chut vIlobha' jI

vaj Da tach vImaSbogh vIghoSlI'

Daq quvha'Daq chata 'op jupwI'



jImujlaw'mo' jIghlIj

Daqvam 'obe' DaqwIj

ghu' vISIQpu' 'ej vISIQqa'

qay'be'ba' ghu'vam

vaj jIjats maj ram

ghIq lojmItDaq jIDev'eghqangba'

bong Hughhomvam

vIqaSmopu' vaj Hap ghlam

wa' rep pIq baw'chola yab

ngugh jI jen law' chalqachlIj jen law'

chalqachvets chIS DaDab



Daq quvha'Daq chata 'op jupwI'

pa' SengmeywIj hata hIq Seng bI'-

chu'mo' je hIq haw'

vaj pa' jIbaw'

loQ nugh chut vIlobha' jI

vaj Da tach vImaSbogh vIghoSlI'

Daq quvha'Daq chata 'op jupwI'
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