[tlhIngan Hol] Callimachus Hymn IV To Delos excerpt

Steven Boozer sboozer at uchicago.edu
Wed Jun 2 08:23:53 PDT 2021


It’s certainly “culturally taboo” among the warrior caste, but whether that’s true of the general Klingon population– let alone non-Klingon subjects of the Empire - is unknown.  If the {-vIp} suffix is particularly shunned, there are alternatives: {Haj} dread, {ghIj} scare, {lIm} panic, etc.

FYI there’s an interesting parallel in the _Encyclopedia of Fictional and Fantastic Languages_ by Tim Conley & Stephen Cain (2006):

   The junk-dealing Jawas speak Jawaese, a language with … origins in Zulu
   ….  [Ben Burtt, George Lucas's sound designer] recalls that he asked Zulu
   speakers to tell stories in different emotional registers for his recordings,
   but one speaker “balked” when asked to speak fearfully: “He told me that
   a warrior such as himself would not know any fear, so certainly he could
   not express it. I guess that's why the Jawas, despite their size, became so
   fearless.”

See Burtt's _Star Wars Galactic Phrase Book and Travel Guide_, (New York: 2001; p. 136).
__Voragh

___________________________________________________________________
From: SuStel
On 6/2/2021 10:54 AM, mayqel qunen'oS wrote:
(I can't find the words to describe how much I don't give a jay' about the "not using {-vIp} with first-person prefix unless there's a {-be'}" rule).

Well, think about it. The taboo doesn't say "don't use -vIp with a first-person prefix unless there's a -be' on it." The rule actually states, "This suffix is rarely used with a prefix meaning I or we. Though it is grammatically correct, it is culturally taboo."

I don't care how (inappropriately) literally anyone wants to read that, the obvious point of the taboo is to not admit fear. If you want to say pagh latlh be' ghop wIbamvIp, you're not admitting fear; you're denying fear.
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