[Tlhingan-hol] New canon from Klingon Monopoly

[Steven Boozer]

For those who haven't read it, here's KGT, p. 141-142:

  One habit of younger speakers that seems to be taking hold among speakers in general involves planet names. Though no official treaty or agreement exists, Klingons generally follow a naming scheme used throughout the galaxy whereby a planet's name is really the name of its sun (or one of them) followed by a number referring to its orbit. Within a solar system, the planet orbiting closest to the sun is numbered "one," the next is "two," and so on. Thus lIghon wa' ("Ligon I") is the planet orbiting closest to the Ligon sun; lIghon cha' ("Ligon II") is the second closest. There are a couple of other ways planet names are derived. Sometimes the Klingon name is simply a rendition of the name used by the inhabitants of the planet, such as tera' ("Earth, Terra"). On other occasions, a name is a Klingon version of the name used not by the natives of a planet but by another alien culture. Thus, romuluS ("Romulus") is based on the Federation name of the planet; the actual Romulan name is something quite distinct.
   A name for the inhabitant of a planet (and, therefore, the name of a race of beings) is formed by adding ngan ("inhabitant") to the planet name (excluding the number, if any): lIghonngan ("Ligonian"), tera'ngan ("Earther, Terran"), romuluSngan ("Romulan"). (Actually, there is some phonetic variation here. "Ligonian" is often pronounced lIghongan, dropping the final n of lIghon before the initial ng of ngan. This is not considered an error, only an alternate pronunciation.)
   Occasionally, and no doubt owing to influence from Federation Standard, from which names, as noted, are often taken, an extra syllable, -ya'-, comes between the planet name and ngan. Thus, "Denebian"--that is, an inhabitant of one of the Deneb planets--is both DenIbngan and DenIbya'ngan. The planet name itself is also heard in two forms: DenIb (formed from the name
Deneb) and DenIbya' (formed by dropping the ngan from DenIbya'ngan). The syllable ya' seems to be used as if it were a suffix meaning "place name." Thus, Ligon has sometimes been called lIghonya' in addition to lIghon, Organia is both 'orghenya' and 'orghen, and Cardassia is both qarDaS and qarDaSya'. The -ya' cannot be added to all planet names, however. No one ever says romuluSya' ("Romulus") or tera'ya' ("Earth") and certainly not Qo'noSya' ("Kronos"), the Klingon Homeworld itself.
  For a long time, the two forms of planet names were used with roughly equal frequency, with the -ya' variants having just a slight edge in formal and scholarly contexts, and one might have considered -ya' to be simply a place-name suffix. More recently, however, younger speakers have been favoring the shorter forms (that is, those lacking -ya'), and this habit seems to be slowly spreading to older speakers as well. Though the longer names are certainly still heard and are unobjectionable, -ya' may, over time, fall out of usage altogether.


--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Felix Malmenbeck [mailto:felixm at kth.se]
> I believe that on the final version of the board, the name vas changed
> to verengannar (can't check right now; perhaps somebody can confirm).
> 
> Also, 'anDorya' was changed to 'anDor (which is interesting, since
> people disagree on what the distinction is between Andor and Andoria;
> some claim one is the planet and the other the moon, while others
> claim "andor" is Andorian for "world", and -ia is some sort of
> augmentative suffix, so Andoria is "THE world"). Of course, for all we
> know, 'anDorya' is also correct (much like qarDaS and qarDaSya').
> 
> I think the Klingon spelling of Praxis is a bit unfortunate; it looks
> like a Klingon backfit of a Human name (like 'entepray'), rather than
> it being the other way around (I'd have liked something like *pIratlh
> or *pIra'tlhIH).
> 
> ________________________________________
> From: Steven Boozer [sboozer at uchicago.edu]
> loghaD:
> >> {verngannar} - Ferenginar (Ferengi Alliance;
> >> http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Ferenginar)
> >> [NOTE: Some believe that this may be a typo; that it should in
> >> fact be verengannar, since Ferengi is verengan.]
> 
> De'vID:
> > Well, based on {verengan}, shouldn't it be *{vere} or *{veren}?
> > But we know the Ferengis call it something that sounds like
> > "Ferenginar" to human ears, and perhaps the same word sounds like
> > {verngannar} to Klingons.  Maybe it's {verengan} that's unusual.
> > Perhaps Klingons think {verngannarngan} is too long and unwieldy,
> > or the presence of a {ngan} in the middle of a word ending in
> > {ngan} is confusing to them (what? what's a Verian's Narian?),
> > and so they shortened the word to {verengan} via some process
> > that added the middle "e".
> 
> I used to think that *{vereng} was a short-form planet name in
> Klingon, perhaps used earlier in preference to *{verengannar}.
> 
>   verengan < ?verengngan < ?vereng + ngan
> 
> We've seen examples of such elision before:
> 
>   lIghongan < lIghonngan < lIghon + ngan
> 
> KGT 141:  A name for the inhabitant of a planet (and, therefore, the
> name of a race of beings) is formed by adding {ngan} (inhabitant) to
> the planet name (excluding the number, if any): {lIghonngan}
> (Ligonian) [...] (Actually, there is some phonetic variation here.
> Ligonian is often pronounced {lIghongan}, dropping the final {n} of
> {lIghon} before the initial {ng} of {ngan}. This is not considered an
> error, only an alternate pronunciation.)
> 
> Another example:
> 
>   vulgangan < ?vulganngan < vulqan + ngan (?)
> 
> The word {tlhIngan} itself may be a variation:
> 
>   tlhIngan < ?tlhIngngan < tlhIng + ngan (?)
> 
> 
> --
> Voragh
> Ca'Non Master of the Klingons
>