[Tlhingan-hol] Klingon Word of the Day: ma'

[Philip Newton]

On Sat, Dec 24, 2011 at 16:01, qurgh lungqIj <qurgh at wizage.net> wrote:
> Klingon Word of the Day for Saturday, December 24, 2011
>
> Klingon word: ma'
> Part of speech: verb
> Definition: accommodate

Supposedly from Marc Okrand accommodating Paramount in changing the
parsing of {qama'pu' jonta' neH} from "I told you, engines only!" to
"Wanted prisoners!".

As I understand it, {-pu'} used to be a simple past tense suffix and
{ma'} meant something like "tell", so {qama'pu'} was "I told you". Now
{qama'pu'} is "I have accommodated you" :)

(In addition to its noun meaning, "prisoners".)

Further as I understand it, this one sentence is the origin of clipped
Klingon, of the fact that {neH} does not use {'e'} in the
sentence-sentence construction, of the suffix {-ta'} "accomplished,
done", and of the plural suffix {-pu'} for beings capable of language.
(I wonder where the plural {-Du'} for body parts comes from? Does it
predate {-pu'} or did it come later?)

Someone who knows their Klingon history better, please correct me on
any of this.

Cheers,
Philip
-- 
Philip Newton <philip.newton at gmail.com>