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>I've long suspected that Jean Valjean was an element in the origin of {jav} "six" to begin with. My guess is that when Dr. Okrand was >trying to come up with a word for "six", the TV show "The Prisoner" came to mind, but he couldn't turn that directly into a Klingon >word. But "prisoner" brought up the association with Jean Valjean (JV), hence {jav}. The later slang usage of {jav} "prisoner" >might've been a glimpse into this creation process.

Hey, you're probably right! I've known the word *jav* for "six" for many years, and I've known that Number Six was from The Prisoner. In fact, there's even a palindrome (from a Craig Hansen book, I believe) that reads "A six is a six is a six is a . . .", and shows a prisoner writing the number 666666666 all over his prison walls. But it wasn't until I saw *jva* that I made the connection with Jean Valjean. Who, of course, is prisoner number two four SIX oh one.