[Tlhingan-hol] 19 new words to create

[qov at kli.org]

> Looks as if I hit the nail on the head with this one! Perhaps Marc Okrand should declare this usage [SuD = blonde] official so it can get into the next edition of the Klingon dictionary.

That's not really how it works. SuD means be blue, be green, be yellow.  If you hear that someone's hair is SuD you'll guess that the hair is a colour in that range, and dealing with humans you're likely going to guess the only natural hair colour that calls in that range. That English has hair-colour specific vocabulary words doesn't require any other language to do so.  Klingon is a context-sensitive language.  Declaring SuD=blonde on this basis is sort of like determining that x=3 on an algebra problem, and thereafter expecting that x will always equal three.

>>>I put on a skit at the last qep?a? of <jIboy SuD, wej mIl?oD je>. See if you can untangle that.
>
> Lessee . . . "cute blonde one/Blondie, also a charming teddy bear"?

Excellent job on Blondie for jIboy SuD: when you figure out the rest you will realize that the traditional translation is not the one you chose, but means  the same thing.

Most people would use the other translation of je here, but again yours means the same thing.

You have selected the translation for wejpuH instead of the translation for the unrelated word wej.  Notice also that wejpuH doesn't actually mean charming. It means what English speakers mean when they say charming in an ironic manner, so "yuck" or "how rude" or the like.  Note that it's an exclamation, not an adjective. There are also two meanings of wej, but only one makes sense here.

Also you have selected the translation for mIl'oD ngeb, and not mIl'oD. Do you have a self-programmed look-up tool that is returning partial matches, or are you just using a vocabulary list carelessly? It is important not to disassemble Klingon words beyond actual suffixes and prefixes.

> Thanks for this insight. I'm not too into Klingon culture, I'm just a conlang aficionado. I like to watch lexica grow. (The ultimate in conlang lexica is Classical Yiklamu, with over 91,000 
> words.) I've watched the lexicon of Klingon grow over the past few years, to over 3,000 words. Here's to hoping someday it reaches 4,000.

I would prefer to never again have another new Klingon word, if the alternative were for us to grow to three thousand capable speakers. There's room for people to be playing different games in this same sandbox, but I prefer to build castles, and am a little confused by those whose primary interest seems to be counting the grains of sand.

mu' chu' DavI' 'e' DamaSchugh, mu'mey Daghajbogh tIbochmoH 'ej tISovchu'.

  - Qov ‘utlh
--
Online Klingon Course free to all KLI members: http://www.kli.org/members-only/klcp-prep/