Archive of Okrandian Canon
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From: Marc Okrand <mokrand@erols.com>
Newsgroups: startrek.klingon
Date: Mon, 23 Mar 1998 00:15:57 -0500
Subject: Re: DIrmey pagh DIrDu'
Steven Boozer wrote ...
>On Mon, 2 Mar 1998, Alan Anderson wrote:
>|That said, I prefer {DIrDu'} when talking about multiple skins, especially
>|multiple layers of skin like a shedding snake.
>
>As to the plural, in the discussion of the traditional warrior's tunic
>{yIvbeH} we read, "Accompanying sleeves (tlhaymey) ... were generally
>made of animal pelts (veDDIrmey), skin (DIr), with fur (veD) still
>attached" (KGT p. 58).
Since number is an optional category in Klingon (the plural suffix may be left off even if the word refers to more than one thing), {DIr} may refer to "a skin" or "skins" or "skin" as a material or substance. Likewise for {veDDIr} "pelt, pelts."
So the problem of which plural suffix to use comes up only when one feels the need to be very specific.
If I understand Maltz correctly, it works like this:
The general plural suffix {-mey} is not used with body parts (except by poets, of course). Thus {DIrmey} "skins" and {veDDIrmey} "pelts" are not (or, perhaps better, are no longer) body parts, but rather are materials from which things (clothing or blankets, for example) may be made. They've lost their association with the creatures that originally had them. (This is kind of like the distinction in English between "beef," which is eaten, and "cattle," which isn't.)
If there still is that association, that is, if the creatures still have their skin, or if it's a creature that has multiple skins (maybe layers, maybe different kinds of skin on different parts of the body), or if the skin just came off either by natural causes (as with Alan Anderson's snakes) or by the creatures being, well, skinned, then the body-part plural suffix {-Du'} may be used: {DIrDu'}.
But {DIr} alone, without a suffix, is heard most often.