April 2019 - tlhIngan-Hol

Klingon Word of the Day: Duj
by Klingon Word of the Day 17 Apr '19

17 Apr '19

Klingon Word of the Day for Wednesday, April 17, 2019 Klingon word: Duj Part of speech: noun Definition: instincts Source: TKD (85 KE, 138 EK) This Klingon Word of the Day is brought to you by qurgh (qurgh(a)kli.org)

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No word for "nuclear" ???
by mayqel qunen'oS 17 Apr '19

17 Apr '19

It just came to me.. We don't have a word for "nuclear" !!! So how do I say "nuclear submarine" ??? The "submarine" is easy: bIQ'a' qoD Duj. But the "nuclear" ? How do I say "nuclear" ? ~ m. qunen'oS Ca'NoN holy Ca'NoN

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qIH and -chuq
by mayqel qunen'oS 16 Apr '19

16 Apr '19

Two women meet each other. One has a son, the other has a daughter; and unfortunately they are both single. So, one woman wants to say to the other "we need to cause our children to meet (each other)". According to HQ 7.4 p.11 1998, (which since the HQ transcription project went to the toilet, I don't have) the verb qIH always takes an object or -chuq in "normal usage". So, back to the two grandchildren-less women example, they will need to say: 1. {puqpu'ma' DIqIHchuqnISmoH} we need to cause our children to meet each other or 2. {puqlI'vaD puqwI' DaqIHnISmoH} you need to cause your child to meet my child whereas 3. {puqpu'ma' DIqIHnISmoH} means "we need to cause our children to meet (someone unspecified)" So, I want to ask three things: 1. Are both 1&2 equally correct ? 3. Is my translation of 3 correct ? 2. What is this "normal usage" our holy Ca'NoN talks about ? Is there an "abnormal" one two ? ~ m. qunen'oS go to the Ca'Non breaker temple; do what must be done ! only then will you be strong in the Ca'Non side of klingon..

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Klingon Word of the Day: vaq
by Klingon Word of the Day 16 Apr '19

16 Apr '19

Klingon Word of the Day for Tuesday, April 16, 2019 Klingon word: vaq Part of speech: verb Definition: mock Source: ADD This Klingon Word of the Day is brought to you by qurgh (qurgh(a)kli.org)

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Klingon Word of the Day: ghatlh
by Klingon Word of the Day 15 Apr '19

15 Apr '19

Klingon Word of the Day for Monday, April 15, 2019 Klingon word: ghatlh Part of speech: verb Definition: dominate Source: TKD This Klingon Word of the Day is brought to you by qurgh (qurgh(a)kli.org)

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Klingon Word of the Day: muq
by Klingon Word of the Day 15 Apr '19

15 Apr '19

Klingon Word of the Day for Sunday, April 14, 2019 Klingon word: muq Part of speech: verb Definition: have a volume of Source: KGT This Klingon Word of the Day is brought to you by qurgh (qurgh(a)kli.org)

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Klingon argument in Discovery ep. "Through the Valley of Shadows"
by De'vID 15 Apr '19

15 Apr '19

Warning: the following contains spoilers. Whatever you may think of Star Trek Discovery season 1, it had a lot of good spoken Klingon. From a Klingon language point of view, season 2 was disappointing as they've drastically cut that back. However, there was one really good bit of dialogue in season 2 episode 12, "Through the Valley of Shadows". It was an argument in Klingon between Chancellor L'Rell and Ash Tyler, a Starfleet officer who is sort-of father to L'Rell son and speaks Klingon because... well, you just have to watch the show to understand. The dialogue consisted of short, choppy sentences spoken rapidly, and even used {jabbI'ID}, which I believe we haven't seen onscreen since Star Trek III, so it was really a callback to the origins of the Klingon language. Info about this can be found on the Klingon Wiki: http://www.klingonwiki.net/En/DSC212 Here's the dialogue (my transcription, so if anyone hears or knows differently, speak up): Ash: chora'meH DIb Daghajbe'. L'Rell: ghaH Qan chut: not Qumlu'. Ash: chut choH jabbI'IDvam. L'Rell: meqqoqvetlh SIQlaHbe' puqloDma'. -- De'vID

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Natural vs. artificial features
by Will Martin 14 Apr '19

14 Apr '19

My frequent roommate at qep’a’mey, Holtej, was very interested in Noam Chompsky’s theories about the nature of the development of language, of and by children. Like most things I learn about, my understanding is incomplete, and I fill in the gaps with my own version of how it works… Observing that when adults without a common language are thrown together, they form a pigeon language with little or no grammar, built mostly from negotiated common vocabulary, but when children are raised in similar circumstances, they develop a creole language, which is grammatically much more sophisticated, with a richer vocabulary. Most natural languages have irregular words, typically the most commonly used ones. As children learn a language, it’s up to the adults to correct the kids when they try to regularize the irregular words. How many three and four year olds learning English come up with the word “gooder” instead of “better”? The answer is, “ALL of them.” If we never corrected the kids, likely they’d completely regularize the language in one generation. The process of making movies has given Okrand opportunities to break earlier rules and make the language weirder and more complex, more like a natural language (like the three plural suffixes when originally there was going to be only one, or like the use of aspect instead of tense), but as I learn ASL, I’m realizing the difference in nature between the irregularities of Klingon, vs. those of natural languages. American Sign Language has two sources of irregularities that strike me as interesting. One involves the way that many signs in ASL are “initialized”, meaning that they use the hand shapes of the fingerspelling alphabet while gesturing often as a way of splitting synonyms out into separate signs instead of just having an even smaller, more generalized vocabulary — the sign for “class” is done with hands shaped as “C”s, while the same sign with “T”s means “team” and with “G”s means “group”. Certain commonly used signs are initialized with the “wrong” letter. All the “newer” signs initialize with the letters of English equivalent words, but the really old signs, like “lend” (using the letter “P”, as in the French “prêter") or “give” (using the letter “D”, as in the French “donner”) exist because the adult who started ASL in the first American school for the Deaf a couple centuries ago spoke French, and the adults who continue to teach the children keep teaching them these irregular, common-use signs. That adult left after three years, so most of the vocabulary has been developed by the kids in the school, so as in the development of a creole language, the majority of signs that are initialized are done more “regularly”, mimicking the letters used in English. (Yes, I know there’s more to it than that, in part because of the “Total Communication Movement” done by a group of hearing adults trying to replace ASL with Signed English, but even with the pushback from that movement, the English initialized signs remain the “regularized” norm.) The second thing is that there are these beautiful signs, like “table”, which look like what a kid does with his forearms when he sits at a table. Also, there’s a sign for “Grandfather” and “Grandmother”, but there are no signs for “Grandson” or “Granddaughter”. You have to fingerspell “Grand” and then sign “son” or “daughter”. Why the asymmetry? Well, kids talk about grandparents. They don’t talk about grandchildren. So, how does this relate to Klingon? I see contrasts. Common words in Klingon are extremely regular, basically because Okrand was making up vocabulary as he made up grammar and rules for building words, so he didn’t violate those rules while making up the most common vocabulary. Exceptions? Consider the word {lo’laH}. I think it may have been the first polysyllabic verb root, at least semi-accidentally created by using it adjectivally when {-laH} was not a permitted suffix on a verb while being used following a noun to describe it. That’s remarkably irregular for Klingon, but it’s not a particularly common word. It’s useful enough, so to speak, but that’s not the kind of word that a natural language comes up with that breaks the rules that other words follow. And there are no cool, kid-centric words. All the weird family relationship words are not especially rich from a kid’s perspective vs. that of an adult. They are pretty symmetrical, as if some guy sat there and started making up words for different kinds of relatives… … and he’s not a kid. He’s an older guy. The vocabulary suits the old guy who comes up with the words, and the adult characters in the movies and TV shows. We rarely see Klingon kids. The least regular of affixes, like the Rovers that don’t Rove, or {-neS}, are not remarkably common-use, except maybe the commonness of {tu’lu’} where one would expect {lutu’lu’}, but let’s face it. THAT was just a lazy error, often repeated. In another generation or two of Klingon speakers, the entire {lu-} prefix is probably going to disappear… But I digress. charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.

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Klingon Word of the Day: volchaH
by Klingon Word of the Day 13 Apr '19

13 Apr '19

Klingon Word of the Day for Saturday, April 13, 2019 Klingon word: volchaH Part of speech: noun Definition: shoulder Source: TKD (112 KE, 152 EK) This Klingon Word of the Day is brought to you by qurgh (qurgh(a)kli.org)

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Klingon Word of the Day: ngeng
by Klingon Word of the Day 12 Apr '19

12 Apr '19

Klingon Word of the Day for Friday, April 12, 2019 Klingon word: ngeng Part of speech: noun Definition: lake Source: TKD This Klingon Word of the Day is brought to you by qurgh (qurgh(a)kli.org)

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