[Tlhingan-hol] birds (was Re: Klingon Bird-of-Prey Haynes Manual)

[Steven Boozer]

De'vID
> *{cherwItlh} - I've never heard of this, where is it from?

*cherwtl* [sic], a type of bird native to Klinzhai (from the pro-novel _Dwellers in the Crucible_).  This was coined before Okrand gave us so many bird names and occasionally shows up in some fan fiction.


> Does anyone know the puns behind these ones?

I don't know them all, but here's what I have in my notes...

> {cha'naS} - a small bird which digs up bugs to eat

1. National Audubon Society? (NAS)
2. *nasnas* ("Another variety of Nasnas, having the wings of a bat, inhabits the island of Raij (perhaps Borneo) at the edge of the China seas." (http://www.hum.au.dk/romansk/borges/vakalo/zf/html/body_the_nasnas.html)?

> {cha'par} - a bird notes for its song

Spanish *parpar* "quack" (the sound made by a duck).  (Okrand speaks Spanish; indeed his 1977 Ph.D. dissertation "Mutsun Grammar" was primarily based on Spanish documents.)

> {lotlhmoq} - a bird that swoops into the water in order to catch food,
> but cannot swim

Possibly not a pun.  It first appeared in Keith R.A. DeCandido's _Enemy Territory_ as a "predatory bird native to Qo'noS that swoops into the water to catch food".

> {yatqap} - a grey (sometimes white) bird that can travel particularly
> long distances without pausing

"I thought of swallows - some of them are migratory. How about the first syllable of Capistrano? The Swallow was a famous yacht of the late 19th and early 20th century; its custom-built boat house Swallow's Nest still stands at Lake Winnipesaukee, New Hampshire." (ghunchu'wI')


--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons