From: Marc Okrand Newsgroups: startrek.klingon Date: Mon, 2 Mar 1998 22:53:39 -0500 Subject: Re: -be', -Ha' David Trimboli wrote ... >Qermaq wrote ... >>>par parHa' dislike like >>>naD naDHa' commend discommend >>>yuD yuDHa' dishonest honest >> >>Dishonesty may be a default too. Odd that is "trust" though... >> >>>yep yepHa' careful careless > > >An idea: ALL of these, including {voq}, could be the "default," as Qermaq >suggests. Consider a battle (a fairly default Klingon activity). Liking >and being honest are not particularly important in battle. However, >trusting and being careful are. Whether or not this is the actual reason >for these alleged defaults, it shows that there might easily be a good >reason that {voq} defaults to what we consider a positive term. > >(Note: disliking and being dishonest may equate with positive terms in >Klingon, thus their being "defaults.") > >SuStel Learning about Klingon character or mindset by way of studying what Qermaq terms "defaults" in vocabulary will probably lead to interesting insights. I think both Qermaq and SuStel are on the right track: {par} "dislike," for example, is probably the more neutral or expected reaction of a Klingon to someone else; {parHa'} "like" (or, more revealingly, "not dislike" or "undislike" or "misdislike" or even "disdislike" [?!], since it's made up of {par} "dislike" plus {-Ha'}, the negative suffix implying that something is undone or done wrongly) is a modification (an undoing?) of this expected reaction. It may be that not everything has a default. Note, for example, {QuchHa'} "be unhappy" and {'IQ} "be sad." These two words don't mean quite the same thing: {QuchHa'} is made up of {Quch} "be happy" plus the negative suffix {-Ha'}, suggesting a change from being happy to not being happy. {'IQ} does not have this connotation, nor does {Quchbe'} "be not happy" (or, if you prefer, "not be happy"). Nevertheless, is the default in this pair {Quch} "be happy" or is it {'IQ} "be sad"? On the other hand, when the only way to express a certain idea is by modifying a word (for example, by adding a suffix) rather than using an entirely different word, perhaps one can argue that the nonmodified word is the default. Thus, the only (known) way to express the opposite of {par} "dislike" is by adding a negative suffix to {par}. Unlike {QuchHa'} "be unhappy" and {'IQ} "be sad," there's no choice when it comes to "like"; you've got to use a word based on {par}: {parHa'}. It appears that the only kind of "like" there is is the "undoing" or "misapplication" of "dislike." (Of course, you could also say {parbe'} "like" or, more literally, "not dislike," using the negative suffix {-be'} "not"; but {parbe'} is also based on {par}. {parHa'} is heard more frequently than {parbe'}, however, and this may be a hint at the usual way a Klingon looks at things.) Interestingly (and bolstering the idea that "dislike" is a default), there's also the word {muS} "hate" (which is presumably stronger somehow than {par} "dislike"). It also has no known opposite except for the suffixed forms: {muSHa'} "dis-hate" or "unhate"; {muSbe'} "not hate." =========================================================================== From: Marc Okrand Newsgroups: startrek.klingon Date: Mon, 2 Mar 1998 22:53:45 -0500 Subject: Re: -be', -Ha' TPO wrote.... >par parHa' dislike like >naD naDHa' commend discommend >yuD yuDHa' dishonest honest >yep yepHa' careful careless > >etc etc > >but then we have: > >Qoch Qochbe' disagree agree > >why not QochHa' The short answer is that we *can* have QochHa', it's just not listed in the Dictionary. As I wrote elsewhere (in the old MSN newsgroup, but repeated in another thread in this newsgroup), for the most part, words in The Klingon Dictionary consisting of verb + suffix are there as a matter of convenience. That is, if you want to look up how to say "misinterpret," it's there -- {yajHa'}. {yajHa'} consists of {yaj} "understand" plus the negative suffix {-Ha'} "undo," and, even though {yajHa'} is an entry in the Dictionary, there is nothing to prevent other suffixes, including the other negative suffix {-be'}, from following {yaj}. Thus {yajbe'} is a perfectly well-formed word meaning "not understand." Because there is a meaning difference between the two negative suffixes (for sake of brevity, {-Ha'} suggests doing or being something in the wrong way or undoing something; {-be'} suggests simply not doing or not being something), there is a meaning difference between {yajbe'} and {yajHa'}. The first word implies the absence of understanding ("not understand"); the second implies that any understanding that there may have been was imprecise or askew or not properly done ("misunderstand, misinterpret"). Which brings us to {Qochbe'} and {QochHa'}. Both consist of the verb {Qoch} "disagree" plus a negative suffix. Parallel to the example above with {yaj} "understand," {Qochbe'} implies an absence of disagreeing (hence "agree"); {QochHa'} implies that any disagreeing was misplaced or misconstrued or perhaps has been "undone." English lacks a simple way to say this. (At least I couldn't think of one; if anyone has any suggestions, I'd be interested in seeing them.) Made-up words like "misdisagree" or "undisagree" may get the idea across, but they're hardly elegant (unlike Klingon {QochHa'}, which is elegance itself). Now this raises another question, slightly different from the original one: If both {Qochbe'} and {QochHa'} are acceptable Klingon words, why is one in the Dictionary and the other not? For better or worse, the Dictionary is a "one size fits all" sort of work. It's for those who want to study the language in depth (though it is far from exhaustive), but also for those who want a quick reference (How do you say "agree"?). Since "agree" (that is, "not disagree") is probably going to be said more frequently that "misdisagree" (or a more felicitous equivalent), it got to be listed. Similarly, {naDHa'} "discommend" is listed due to its importance in Klingon culture, though {naDbe'} "not commend" is a properly formed word. =========================================================================== From: Marc Okrand Newsgroups: startrek.expertforum Date: Mon, 2 Mar 1998 00:27:06 -0500 Subject: Re: Problem with {-meH} and negative meanings >Guy Vardaman wrote ... >>Marc, have you determined types of accents for Klingon language (for >>example, if Worf consistently pronounces his eh' sound differently than >>you do, is it consistent enough to consider it a dialect from a >>particular province? or a type of accent?) It would seem that you'd have >>heard a variety of similar mis-pronouncements from different Humans >>attempting the "Language of Warriors." >>Well, I'm going to refrain from saying more before I show my ignorance >>of the language. One last thing along those lines though, could we talk >>about the difference between upper and lower case (as used in the Daily >>Klingon Language lesson)? Well, SuStel got to this before I did. Not surprisingly (given his expertise in the language), much of what he said is what I would have said anyway. David Trimboli wrote ... >I'm not Marc, but I do know the answer to this. We now have >startrek.klingon, which is for the discussion of the Klingon language. > >Several Klingon dialects based on region or planet are described in Marc >Okrand's latest book, Klingon for the Galactic Traveler. There are also >generational and societal differences. [I've taken pieces of the original posting out here, just to make this one shorter.] >In Star Trek VI, we actually get to hear the Morskan >dialect INTENTIONALLY. This is true. The original script for "Star Trek VI" (well, the earliest version that I saw, anyway) had the English translations for the lines spoken by the Klingon at the Morska listening post in a peculiar kind of English to show that it was a different way of speaking. As the filming proceeded, the character changed somewhat so that he became an inattentive Klingon rather than merely a Klingon from some different region, but we kept the nonstandard dialect anyway. (So he became an inattentive Klingon from a part of the Empire we've not heard much about.) >The letters used to represent Klingon are there to tell you the SOUNDS of >Klingon. It's a transcription system. Typically, certain letters are >capitalized to remind you that they are pronounced differently than they >would be in English. For instance, {H} is not English "h," it's like the >German "ch" in the name "Bach." {D} is not English "d," it's a retroflex >{D}. That is, instead of putting your tongue just behind your top teeth, >you point the tongue straight up and touch the roof of your mouth, then say >a "d." And so on. > >In one case, the capitization actually represents a different sound. {q} >and {Q} are different sounds. > >See the first section of The Klingon Dictionary for a complete listing of >symbols used for writing the sounds of Klingon. All well said. Let me elaborate just a bit. The system used to transcribe Klingon, making use of letters from the English (well, Roman) alphabet, was devised so that the reader would have some notion of how to pronounce the words. Since the system was originally developed as a guide for English-speaking actors (and then retained for English-speaking readers of the Dictionary), most of the letters represent the same sound that they represent in English. Thus {b} is the same as "b" in "boy," {t} is like "t" in "toy," and so on. But, as SuStel points out, there are some sounds in Klingon that do not occur in English (or have no standard ways to be represented by English letters), so a way was needed to write each of them. This was handled by various means: (1) In one case, the letter {q} was used to represent a sound sort of like English "k," but made farther back in the mouth. In English words, "q" is always followed by "u" (and then by another vowel) and the combination of the two, "qu," is pronounced like "kw." (Words taken into English from other languages don't necessarily follow this pattern; e.g., "quiche.") Since "q" without its companion "u" isn't used in English (except in a few words of foreign origin), it was available to represent a non-English sound in Klingon. And since "q" in English represents the "k" part of the "kw" sound, it was a good candidate to represent a "k"-like sound in Klingon. {q} rather than {k} was chosen for this Klingon sound so that the reader would be aware that it's a sound different from "k." (2) In two cases, a combination of letters which does not occur as such in English was used: {tlh} and {gh}. (3) In one case, a symbol used in English writing, though, properly speaking, not a letter itself, was used for a sound: {'}, the apostrophe. This is a "glottal stop" -- a quick pause in vocalization which occurs, for example, in between the two syllables in English "uh-uh" (meaning "no"). And finally, since this is what the original question was about: (4) In all other cases of non-English sounds, capital letters were used. SuStel mentions {D}, {H}, and {Q}; another is {S}. There is one other capital letter used in Klingon: {I}. This represents the very English sound written with "i" in "sit." In Klingon, {I} was chosen for this sound (rather than {i}) to help ensure that it would not be pronounced like the "i" in "mine" or in "machine." (The other vowels in Klingon, {a}, {e}, {o}, and {u}, can be read with the values they have in Romance languages like Spanish. But Romance/Spanish "i" is not the same as Klingon {I}, which is why the Klingon vowel gets singled out for capitalization. [Actually, Klingon {e} and Spanish "e" aren't the same either, but they're close enough for this discussion.]) It's important to remember that this system of transcribing Klingon with the weird letter combinations (like {tlh}) and capital letters is just that: a transcription. It's a way to represent in writing the sounds of the spoken language. And it's done so that a reader will have a reasonable shot at getting it right. It's not the official Klingon way of writing! The way Klingons write their own language is with a set of characters (called {pIqaD}) that you've seen on control panels and viewscreens and doorways in various episodes and films. The Roman-letter transcription is a crutch for those of us who can't read {pIqaD}. I got a little long-winded here. But hope this helps. - Marc >See the first section of The Klingon Dictionary for a complete listing of >symbols used for writing the sounds of Klingon. > >SuStel >Stardate 98153.8 > [[eof]]