[tlhIngan Hol] Klingon Word of the Day: bIS'ub

[Will Martin]

It strikes me that {bIS’ub} and {pIrmuS} are words that, like “animal” and {Ha’DIbaH} would be nearly impossible to distinguish between the pair of words by lipreading. Given that Okrand’s early work with the Star Trek, even before working on the Klingon language involved coming up with Vulcan words that would lip sync to video shot in English, I wonder…

{pIrmuS} took form as a pun based on Pirimus and Thisby, the play-within-a-play in Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream because the inner character Pirimus was played by the outer play’s character named Bottom.

But what does {bIS'ub} come from?

Maybe just random sounds, maybe some other pun, or maybe Okrand built in the ability to fix this after the fact if he ever got it wrong in some future movie...

charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan

rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.

> On Oct 19, 2020, at 10:06 AM, Steven Boozer <sboozer at uchicago.edu> wrote:
> 
> Klingon Word of the Day for Saturday, October 17, 2020
> 
> Klingon word: bIS'ub
> Part of speech: noun
> Definition: bottom (interior)
> Source: HQ:v8n3p2
> _______________________________________________
> 
> (IMO, HQ 8.3):  The word for bottom, the counterpart of {yor}, is {pIrmuS}. This word refers to the underside of something, not the interior bottom (such as the bottom of a well or the bottom of a bowl where a few drops of milk remain after eating cereal). The word for the interior bottom of something is {bIS'ub}. If an item is located in the bottom of a box, it is located in the box's {bIS'ub}. If something is found underneath a box, it is found beneath the box's {pIrmuS}. 
> 
> SEE ALSO:
> pIrmuS  	bottom (exterior) (n)
> yor  		top (exterior) (n)
> 'aqroS 		top (interior) (n)
> rav 		floor (n)
> 
> --
> Voragh
> Ca'Non Master of the Klingons
> 
> 
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