Dear Klingonists, It's been four weeks since the book was published, and apparently nobody has noticed, so here we go. Especially those living in Germany may have noticed that I have written a book about the Klingon language, published by a famous travel guide publisher in Germany. Their phrase books all look the same and build up from the same structure, so I had no influence on the layout. A special thing about the layout is having all the words separated by hyphens, which is decided to make it easier for students to recognize the words, as in {Da-yaj-'a'}. Fortunately, I had a chance to talk to Maltz (through Marc Okrand) who could give a few words that are published in that book. For your record, the book's short title is "Kauderwelsch Klingonisch", the complete title is "Kauderwelsch-Band 250: Klingonisch - Wort für Wort". Okrand suggested and confirmed this spelling: Spock - SIpoq (p. 100) Voyager - vo'yajer (p. 101) Discovery - DISqa'vI'rIy (p. 101) He also revealed an expression for going to the bathroom. (p. 109) These are his words: ---- {taQbang ghIm} is the basic structure. You can, of course, substitute {turmIq} or {qeQ} in for {taQbang} if that's what you really want to say. So you can say things like {DaH jImej. turmIq vIghImnIS.} Maltz said Klingons don't have euphemisms for this sort of thing. On the other hand, there is a slang expression or idiom that's used from time to time, though mostly (but hardly always) by or to kids: {qIvon belmoH} (as in {DaH jImej. qIvonwIj vIbelnISmoH.} and the like). You might ask a child who's a little jittery {belHa''a' qIvonlIj?}. Most people say {qIvon}, though some say {qIvonDu'}. Maltz says he has no idea why this expression has this slang meaning, given what he knows about his own {qIvonDu'}. As with idioms in general, you can't substitute one word for another (unless you're playing word games). So saying something like {qIvonwIj vIQuchnISmoH} could only refer to making your {qIvon} happy, assuming it's possible to do such a thing. ----------------- For details on the book, see http://klingonisch.net/kauderwelsch/ -- Lieven L. Litaer aka the "Klingon Teacher from Germany" http://www.klingonisch.de http://www.klingonwiki.net/En/Kauderwelsch