[Tlhingan-hol] Eurotalk - New Words - Countries

[Steven Boozer]

Lieven:
>> What I like a lot is the word for china. I had to look it up,
>> and there you see what you can learn from learning Klingon :-)
>> {jungwoq} is the Chinese name for China and means roughly
>> "middle kingdom".
>> 
>> I also wonder whether the name was taken from Cantonese, 
>> since there's no final consonant in Mandarin.

De'vID:
> MO did, however, deliberately choose the Cantonese pronunciation
> for China rather than Mandarin.  His reason was that if he had
> used Mandarin, the name would have ended in <wo'>, and he didn't
> think Klingons would like to call an Earth country by their word
> for "empire".

Okrand may have used Cantonese before:  

WRT {lung} *loong* "type of lizardlike animal":  "Perhaps a pun on the Chinese word for dragon? In Mandarin, the word is Romanized as *lung* (Wade-Giles) or *long* (pinyin), and takes the second tone. In Cantonese, it's usually Romanized as *lung* (fourth tone), although it's also the *loon* in Kowloon." (Stephen Carter)

WRT {yan} "sword":  In Cantonese, *yahn* means "edge of a sword" (lay'tel SIvten)


--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons