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

De'vID de.vid.jonpin at gmail.com
Wed Oct 21 04:39:28 PDT 2020


On Mon, 19 Oct 2020 at 16:50, Will Martin <willmartin2 at mac.com> wrote:

> 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.
>

I don't understand. Are you claiming that {pIrmuS} and {bIS'ub} have the
same lip movements as "bottom"?


> 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?
>

Given that Pyramus and Thisbe are a pair who talk to each other through a
wall, I am strongly inclined to believe that {bIS'ub} is some kind of
transformation on "Thisbe". (The "isb" is basically there in both words.
One just has to explain why the initial "th" became a {b}.)

-- 
De'vID
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