[Tlhingan-hol] New expression: Klingon for "dim sum" revealed

[De'vID]

On 26 April 2016 at 04:04, David Holt <kenjutsuka at live.com> wrote:
> I know more about Japanese than Chinese, but I know a little about dim sum
> (dim sam in Cantonese). My understanding of the character here pronounced
> "dim" in Cantonese is that as a verb it means "to hint at" or "to touch on",
> but not "to physically touch".

I'm a native Cantonese speaker. The characters for "dim sum" are 點心 in
traditional characters, and pronounced dim2 sam1 in Jyutping notation.
The character for "touch" is 掂 and pronounced dim1, an entirely
different character from 點. The Internet/folk etymology claiming that
"dim sum" means "touch the heart" is wrong, and was probably invented
by someone who can't distinguish between different tones and doesn't
know how to read/write the actual Chinese characters. (I can see how
such a folk etymology might arise among Nth-generation Chinese
Americans, because they pronounce both dim1 and dim2 like the English
word "dim", and never see the two characters in writing.)

點 can mean "to indicate", but in the context of a restaurant, it has a
much more pedestrian meaning: it means "to order (place an order)". To
order a (big or main) dish is to 點菜 dim2 coi3. In contrast, the small
dishes are 點心. So "dim sum" means "a small dish" or "a la carte". 心 in
this usage is short for 心意 meaning wish or intention. 點點心意 means to
order as one wishes, i.e., picking many small items at will, rather
than choosing a set dish. This is the meaning that anyone who is
literate in Cantonese immediately understands.

Yes, 點 can mean point, or spot, etc., and 心 means heart (amongst other
things). It sounds more poetic to claim that 點心 means "a spot of
heart" or something. But the meanings of Chinese bigrams aren't formed
by mushing together every possible meaning of the component parts
(even though many people, including Chinese speakers, apparently
believe this).

While I'm at it, the Chinese word for "crisis" is not composed of the
characters for "danger" and "opportunity", either. But the folk
etymology for "dim sum" is making basically this same kind of error:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_word_for_%22crisis%22

That said, the word {tIq} is clearly a reference to the character 心.
If {tIq Hom} is two words, then {Hom} probably refers to the folk
etymology as well, since its slang meaning refers to something small
or unimportant.

> As a noun it might translate well to "a spot
> (of)", or "a touch (of)", or "a point (of)". The full "dim sam" might mean
> "a little bit of heart" or "a heart that is only as big as a spot" and may
> refer to the small size of the dishes or the supposedly lightness of the
> meal. It may actually be a sort of pun. The character for heart is written
> with one long curved line and three "dots". It might be comparing the long
> line of the character to a meal and "dim sam" to the three dots of the
> character.
>
> In any case, I'm led to believe that our informant is wrong and that it is
> one word meaning "mini-heart". We'll get the details at the qep'a' if no one
> gets confirmation before then.

Well, in the photograph it does look like there's a space between
{tIq} and {Hom}. The Klingon term may have been influenced as well by
the pattern of the English (or Anglicised) term "dim sum": CVC CVC.

-- 
De'vID