[Tlhingan-hol] O for a Muse of fire

[De'vID jonpIn]

QeS 'utlh:

> FWIW, 'o isn't in the version
> recorded by Robert O'Reilly; it begins only with 'oghlu'meH qul.


The clue given by MO was that it was the opening of a Shakespearean play,
and that the first word should give it away.  We listened to it and thought
it was <'ogh>, so we asked him if that's what it was.  He asked to listen
to the recording, then said that O'Reilly had "swallowed" the first sound
into an adjacent word, but confirmed that what we heard was indeed <'ogh>,
and told us that another word in the first sentence should help us.  If you
listen to the recording, O'Reilly says <*ha* *ha* *ha* 'oghlume*S* qul>, so
we figured the first word either had to be <'a> (but) or <'o> (O!), and
that the first sentence contains the word <qul> (fire).  We basically
combed through opening lines of Shakespeare plays looking for "but", "O",
"fire", and "invention".

These are the opening lines of Henry V:
    *O* for a Muse of *fire*, that would ascend
    The brightest heaven of *invention*,
    A kingdom for a stage, princes to act
    And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!

After we reconstructed the line, we confirmed it with MO, who said that as
far as he recalls, the beginning <'o> *should* have been there.

So, it seems that <'o> wasn't invented just recently, but nobody (other
than MO) knew this because Robert O'Reilly had "swallowed" it!

QeS 'utlh:

> I'm still
> trying to work out the rest, but I can hear cha'wI'pu' 'oSjaj SuvwI'pu''e'
> in there, presumably translating "Princes to act" in the third line of the
> English version (and if correct, it gives us a canon word for "actor").
>

There's also a <X wov law' Y wov puS> (it sounds like "... woov boosh")
within the first few lines (for "brightest"), but we couldn't figure out
what X and Y were, though Y *should* be <Hoch> (what he says sounds like
"ookoo").

QeS 'utlh:
>
> If it helps anyone, it seems to me that O'Reilly's reading off a phonetic
> transcript that represents {H} as /ch/; his pronunciation of it is near to
> English "sh". The first line sounds like 'oghlu'meS (!!) qul, and later on
> there are what sounds like two instances of neHlu' being pronounced almost
> like neSlo'. Similarly, his {j} is more like /zh/.
>

Yes, maHvatlh and I made some notes on O'Reilly's pronunciation, as well as
candidates for a number of lines and line fragments... before veqlargh ate
his computer.  Seriously, his laptop died while we were doing this.  I
don't know if he's arrived home yet, but if he manages to resurrect his
laptop he should be able to post more detailed notes on our partial
reconstruction.

-- 
De'vID
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