[tlhIngan Hol] New words from "Kauderwelsch"

[nIqolay Q]

On Fri, Sep 20, 2019 at 2:13 PM SuStel <sustel at trimboli.name> wrote:

> On 9/20/2019 2:11 PM, De'vID wrote:
> > Kor: Curzon? My dear friend Curzon? I lift my ghopDu' to Curzon Dax!
> > Dax: And I, who was Curzon Dax lift my ghopDu' to you. Scorcher burn
> > on your fourteenth rib, and your left qIvon aches every time your ship
> > hits warp eight.
>
> Sigh. Then it's just dumb.
>

>From a writing perspective, it's probably intended to emphasize that Dax is
familiar with Klingon customs. It's how Jadzia (re)introduces herself to
Kor (from the shooting script at
http://www.st-minutiae.com/resources/scripts/439.txt):

        KOR
> I am very thirsty.
>
>         DAX
> Kor, do you remember Curzon Dax?
>
>         KOR
> Curzon?  My dear friend Curzon?  I lift my ghoptu to Curzon Dax!
>
>         DAX
> And I, who was Curzon Dax lift my ghoptu to you.
>     (off his look of disbelief)
> Scorcher burn on your fourteenth rib, and your left QiVon aches every time
> your ship hits warp eight.
>

So the first use of "ghoptu" is just Kor being drunk and dropping Klingon
into his Federation Standard. He had just been regaling Quark's Bar with
stories of honor and glory and battle, so he was probably in a very
{tlhIngan jIH!} sort of mood. Then Dax repeats his phrasing, also using the
Klingon words, to emphasize that she knows them. (It also seems that Kor's
native dialect has D -> t and drops word-final glottal stops.)

If we take {qIvon} to mean "knee" as the writers intended, for instance as
a variant from Kor's native dialect, Dax's use of it would also emphasize
that she's Curzon, since someone who didn't know Kor that well might just
say {qIv}. If we also take {qIvon} as a standard dialect word for a
possibly-vaguely-naughty body part, as suggested by the way Maltz talks
about it, it would also emphasize the friendship between Curzon and Kor,
because making innuendos and double-entendres seems like the sort of thing
Kor and his warrior buddies would get up to.

It's also possible that {qIvon} is sometimes used as a sort of bawdy slang
replacement for {qIv}, because of the phonetic similarity.

I am, of course, speculating wildly. But I don't think the DS9 writer's
room and Maltz are wholly incompatable here. (I wonder if Maltz has ever
heard {qIvon} used to mean "knee".)
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