[tlhIngan Hol] additional new word: tanje'rIn

[nIqolay Q]

On Mon, Nov 18, 2019 at 1:32 PM Lieven L. Litaer <levinius at gmx.de> wrote:

> But I would not put too much weight on that. It's very likely that he
> simply forgot that all fruits have the {naH} complement, and on the
> other hand, I have noticed that many people cheat in those cases saying
> {'epIl vISop} and everyone understands.
>
> http://www.klingonwiki.net/Word/Tanje-rIn
>
> I mean, what would be the difference between {tanje'rIn} and {tanje'rIn
> naH}? Just my opinion, of course.
>

This sort of ties into something I'm curious about. In KGT, p. 88, {naH}
was originally defined as a culinary term, rather than a botanical one:

Any part of any plant that is eaten may be termed {naH}, usually translated
"fruit" or "vegetable."

But when talking about Terran food plants, it's not used for things like
potatoes. Potatoes aren't {patat naH}, they're referred to with a more
specific term, {'oQqar}, focusing on which part of the plant a potato is.
{naH} is only used to refer to Terran plant parts that are fruits in the
botanical sense: that is, "the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants
(also known as angiosperms) formed from the ovary after flowering." (
Wikipedia <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit>) E.g., {ghIrep naH} refers
to the fruit of the grape plant itself, not to other parts of the grape
plant that are eaten, like the leaves. So it seems that {naH}, aside from
having a broader culinary meaning of "any part of any plant that is eaten",
also has a more specific usage for botanical fruits.

So I wonder: Did {naH} originally mean "seed-bearing structure formed from
the ovary after flowering", and was then generalized to all edible plant
parts? Does Klingon not have a specific word for fruit in the botanical
sense, so they just use the generic {naH} to refer to such things on Earth?
Is there a different word for things that are botanically fruits but aren't
eaten <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_inedible_fruits>, so they
wouldn't fit into the original culinary definition of {naH}?

*Sov luneH yIntejpu'...*
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.kli.org/pipermail/tlhingan-hol-kli.org/attachments/20191126/e42a1d1a/attachment.htm>