[tlhIngan Hol] is nIyma' an 'oH or a ghaH

mayqel qunen'oS mihkoun at gmail.com
Fri Jul 31 05:12:00 PDT 2020


In the following link:

https://www.kli.org/tlhIngan-Hol/2008/November/msg00003.html

'oqranD describes the word {nIyma'} and its' meaning. For ease of
reference, I copy -paste here the relevant info:

--------------

Hi, Lieven. Good to hear from you!

I was lucky enough to have a conversation with Maltz the other day and
I told him about your email about {nIyma'}.

Maltz was very surprised. He said, "Where did they learn that word?"
It turns out, {nIyma'} is the Klingon word for "phantom" or
"apparition" -- something that seems to appear, but isn't really
there. It's not the same as "ghost," which is the spirit of a dead
person (and may or may not look like that person, or may not be
visible at all), and it's not the same as "spirit" (or {qa'}), which
is sort of a life force within a person (that escapes when a person
dies and may exist somewhere somehow). He said using {qa'} for "ghost"
was OK, but I got the impression there may be another word as well
(though he didn't offer one). He said that although the word doesn't
really mean "invited guest that doesn't show up," it made a lot of
sense to him to use {nIyma'} to refer to such a person.

He also said that Nima should feel honored that his name is so similar
to a Klingon word.

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Based on the above, is nIyma' an 'oH or a ghaH ? I just can't decide
which of the two pronouns would be appropriate.

~ Qa'yIn



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