[Tlhingan-hol] a tiny information from Maltz

[Lieven Litaer]

Hi Dear Klingonists,

some of us have been working on the translation of Facebook recently, 
and Maltz has been watching us. Some things are really hard to 
translate, but Maltz did not really want to help. He was a real 
curmudgeon lately, in Klingon: {'I'SeghIm}.

One interesting thing he could say was how to form languages, which is 
always "country + Hol", not "country + ngan + Hol".

This is not an april's fool, by the way ;-)
Lieven.

-------- Original-Message --------
Date: 	Tue, 27 Mar 2012 03:53:42 -0400
From: 	Marc Okrand
To: 	Klingonischkurs Saarbrücken <info at qephom.de>

[...]

As for your specific questions...  I can give only a partial answer 
right now.  Maltz has been kind of a curmudgeon lately.  (Do you know 
that English word?  The closest Klingon equivalent is 'I'SeghIm.)

Nevertheless, Maltz said that for language names the construction 
"country + Hol" is most common (so he preferred DoyIchlan Hol).  Of 
course, it doesn't have to be a "country."  It could be a region or a 
political unit or alliance of another kind (which is why DIvI' Hol fits 
in).  He noted that tlhIngan Hol is really a shortened form of tlhIngan 
wo' Hol, but nobody ever says that in everyday speech.

If one were to say vulqangan Hol ("Vulcan's language" or "Vulcans' 
language"), that could mean the same thing as vulqan Hol, so the speaker 
would generally not be misunderstood, but if at an intergalactic 
gathering a Vulcan were speaking Federation Standard, then vulqangan Hol 
for that Vulcan at that time and place would be DIvI' Hol.  There is no 
such thing as qa'naDa' Hol, but qa'naDa'ngan Hol might refer to DIvI' 
Hol or vIraS Hol (or Cree or Inuit or many other languages).

So Maltz thought it best to avoid the -ngan construction for language names.

I'll have to get back to you about names of days of the week.  Maltz was 
very familiar with jaj wa' being used for "Sunday" in the publicity for 
the Star Trek Experience in Las Vegas.  He said he assumed that whoever 
used that translation was catering to Americans who were used to 
considering Sunday the first day of the week, but the way the Klingon 
system and all of the Earth systems he had heard of overlaid on each 
other was complex (then he mumbled something about tlhIngan Hoghmey and 
wandered off).  When I next find him in a talkative mood, I'll try to 
figure out what he was referring to.

[...]

  - Marc