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.

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?