[tlhIngan Hol] New words from "Kauderwelsch"

Lieven L. Litaer levinius at gmx.de
Fri Sep 20 07:26:22 PDT 2019


Dear Klingonists,

It's been four weeks since the book was published, and apparently nobody
has noticed, so here we go.

Especially those living in Germany may have noticed that I have written
a book about the Klingon language, published by a famous travel guide
publisher in Germany. Their phrase books all look the same and build up
from the same structure, so I had no influence on the layout. A special
thing about the layout is having all the words separated by hyphens,
which is decided to make it easier for students to recognize the words,
as in {Da-yaj-'a'}.

Fortunately, I had a chance to talk to Maltz (through Marc Okrand) who
could give a few words that are published in that book.

For your record, the book's short title is "Kauderwelsch Klingonisch",
the complete title is "Kauderwelsch-Band 250: Klingonisch - Wort für Wort".

Okrand suggested and confirmed this spelling:

Spock - SIpoq (p. 100)
Voyager - vo'yajer (p. 101)
Discovery - DISqa'vI'rIy (p. 101)

He also revealed an expression for going to the bathroom. (p. 109)
These are his words:
----
{taQbang ghIm} is the basic structure. You can, of course, substitute
{turmIq} or {qeQ} in for {taQbang} if that's what you really want to
say. So you can say things like {DaH jImej. turmIq vIghImnIS.}

Maltz said Klingons don't have euphemisms for this sort of thing. On the
other hand, there is a slang expression or idiom that's used from time
to time, though mostly (but hardly always) by or to kids: {qIvon belmoH}
(as in {DaH jImej. qIvonwIj vIbelnISmoH.} and the like). You might ask a
child who's a little jittery {belHa''a' qIvonlIj?}.

Most people say {qIvon}, though some say {qIvonDu'}.  Maltz says he has
no idea why this expression has this slang meaning, given what he knows
about his own {qIvonDu'}.

As with idioms in general, you can't substitute one word for another
(unless you're playing word games). So saying something like {qIvonwIj
vIQuchnISmoH} could only refer to making your {qIvon} happy, assuming
it's possible to do such a thing.
-----------------

For details on the book, see
http://klingonisch.net/kauderwelsch/


--
Lieven L. Litaer
aka the "Klingon Teacher from Germany"
http://www.klingonisch.de
http://www.klingonwiki.net/En/Kauderwelsch



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