Archive of Okrandian Canon
| Author | Alan Anderson (describing a manuscript by Marc Okrand et al.) |
|---|---|
| Date | 22 August 2011 |
| Summary | New words from qep’a’ wa’maH chorghDIch 2011: jul sun, pan emit sparks, le’yo’ pride, ngIq individual one, Hun khrun (animal), QIncha’ krincha (animal), yIr gather, ‘o o (in direct address), wel owe. |
| Title | Nine New Words from qep’a’ 18 |
| Type |
Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2011 00:14:54 -0400
Subject: Nine New Words from qep'a' 18
From: "ghunchu'wI' 'utlh" <qunchuy@alcaco.net>
To: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
During a pre-lunch lull in the activities at this year's qep'a', Marc Okrand brought out a stack of paper containing the lyrics to an expanded version of the opera {'u'}. He asked a group of us if we could read it and make comments and suggestions. He told us that not all of it was his work, so it was fine to point out and fix problems as we encountered them. We didn't have to feel compelled to accept unusual constructions or apparent mistakes as correct.
Along with a few easily corrected typographical errors and some simple (and forgivable) grammatical blunders, the following eight previously unseen words appeared in the lyrics we examined. Most were perfectly understandable from context (which included the English version of the text), but we didn't actually get definitive translations or explanations from Marc the way TKD's glossary presents things. He consistently urged us to understand the meaning based on usage, rather than by relying on a specific but perhaps misleading translation.
Oh, and on the day we were doing this, we had all "taken the vow" to speak no English. That twist didn't even occur to me until we were well into the task and had already teased out the meaning of several of the words. My original presentation of these words was in Klingon because that's how I learned them.
jul (n) - sun
This is a general term for a planet's sun. It is not the name of a specific sun.
pan (v) - spark, emit sparks
As the duel between Kahless and Molor continues, the opera repeats a phrase several times: {pan qeylIS betleH 'ej jach molor 'etlh} "Kahless's batlh'etlh sparks and Molor's sword roars." I might not be remembering the lyrics exactly, so please don't take them as perfect canon.
le'yo' (n) - pride
Just to be clear, this describes an emotion, as opposed to a tribe of lions.
nqIq (n) - singular one, individual one
There were two distinct examples of this word's use seen in the opera. One of them was obviously detailing how a group of warriors was killed one at a time: {ngIq nuv luHoH} "they killed the warriors one by one." The other was a thrice-repeated {ngIq tonSaw lo' 'ej...} "in one single move, he...", making it clear that each of several results was the result of the same action. I surmise that {ngIq} by itself could mean "the one and only". Again, I didn't copy the lyrics, and what I have written here is probably not exactly what was on the pages we inspected.
Hun (n) - /Khrun/, type of animal
I didn't read that section of the opera myself, but I think I heard someone say it was a fast animal. The khrun is described in other resources as a Klingon riding animal. Note: this isn't the way we saw it in the draft of the opera. After being reminded that the name of the animal had been given a tlhIngan Hol rendering in Keith DeCandido's book "A Burning House", Marc Okrand decided to use the already published spelling.
QIncha' (n) - /Krincha/, type of animal
The English accompanying the opera said "Krincha, short and fierce". I found references to a "Krencha" in several places, including the KLI's Extended Corpus Project and the Memory Beta wiki. It is described as a large, quick lizard native to Qo'noS, variously said to have either four or six legs. I suspect that the opera's author intended to invoke that animal but misspelled its name.
yIr (v) - gather
This was used in a command for a warrior to gather his armor and weapons before a battle. Before seeing this word, I might have used {boS} "collect" to refer to packing for a trip. Now, {yIr} seems a better choice.
'o (excl) - O
{'o} appears before a name used as direct address. As we saw it used, it acted a little like a vocative prefix: {'o qeylIS, qeylIS, qeylIS...} It seems to be an honorific exclamation, or maybe it's just used for direct address in general and doesn't actually have the implication of deference or reverence that I inferred. If it hadn't been consistently present when the opera "speaks to" Kahless, and consistently absent when it "speaks to" Molor, I might have ignored it as an unimportant background sound. English has almost exactly the same sound with pretty much the same meaning: "O Mouse, do you know the way out of this pool? I am very tired of swimming about here, O Mouse!" (from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland)
One further word was heard as the qep'a' was coming to a close:
wel (v) - owe (someone)
When someone has earned a reward but the prize is not yet available to be given, the person in charge of presenting it can say {qawel} "I owe you." It is probably also appropriate when you have convinced someone to give you some service or product with the understanding that you will pay for it later.
-- ghunchu'wI'