[Tlhingan-hol] Sex and Gender in Klingon

[De'vID]

loghaD:
> I've always assumed that {nga'chuq} is related to {ngaghchuq}; either *nga'* is an old form of {ngagh}, a cognate, or maybe {ngaghchuq} mutated into {nga'chuq} through common use.
>
> So you wouldn't say *qanga'*; even in the odd event that you want to specify yourself as the sexer and your partner as the sexee, you'd say {qangagh}.
>
> In one of the audio courses (PK?), there's a phrase along the lines of:
>
> {targhlIj yIngagh! yIruch!}
> "Go mate with your targ!"

The words were invented very closely together (assuming a tape takes
some time to produce and put together):
{nga'chuq} - HQ 1.3 (Sept. 1992)
{ngagh} - PK (Oct. 1993)

Maybe MO tried to make Klingon egalitarian and came up with
{nga'chuq}, but the producers of PK then forced him to create a verb
meaning "to mate with" with a subject and an object. I suppose he
could've written {Sunga'chuq SoH targhlIj je 'e' yIruch} or something
like that, but that's ugly.

The only instance we know of {ngagh} is between the listener and a
targ, and used as an insult. So maybe {ngagh} is used when the
participants are unequal, or is used (only?) for animals. There's not
enough information to know, though.

-- 
De'vID