h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Three was enough for the main entry, but here are a few more words of Klingon that may have a double meaning....

Among the many words for the various types of archaic weapons, there's a word for "double headed axe" - jey'naS. Not entirely unrelated, one assumes, to the *double headed* Roman god of doorways, passages and bridges - Janus.

Similarly, a wavy bladed knife is called a QIS, which pronounced properly sounds a lot like "kris", which is a word describing an Indonesian or Malayan knife of similar design.

There's a word for a particular kind of thick marinade, used as a sauce - qettlhup. Presumably as in "Heinz Tomato qettlhup".

The word for "lengthy" is simply nI'. As in "we are the knights who say...".

HIq is the generic term for alcoholic drinks nicely onomatopoeic.

In colloquial English, if you get "first dibs" on something, then you have the right or privilege to that thing. The Klingon word for right, or privilege, is DIb.

And finally, enough kidding around. I'm trying to kid anyone, seriously, the Klingon word for a joke, and for the verb "to joke", is qID. Which is appropriate.

If anyone knows any more, I'd be interested to know.

H.

At the h2g2 Summer Meet last weekend, another researcher told me he was trying to learn to say "f**k 'em if they can't take a joke" in as many languages as possible, and asked me if I could provide him with the phrase in Klingon. As you might expect, it's a slight paraphrase, but this is as near as I could get:

qID SIQbe'chugh, bongaghjay'

Now, the literal translation of this is, "if they cannot endure a joke, mate with them!", with a modification for increased intensity, so it basically works. However, I'm pretty sure that there's a better, more "idiomatic" way of saying it, so if anyone can provide one, I'd be very grateful...

H.

Actually, a slightly better version is as follows:

qID SIQlaHbe'chugh, bongaghjay'

Now, a little explanation, which may go some way to showing how complex Klingon can be... (if you really interested, it might also be worth viewing those words in a serif font, which allows you to tell the difference between an l (lowercase L) and an I (uppercase i)).

qID is the word for "joke". Nouns come first.

SIQ is the verb "to endure". I figure Klingons who *can* take a joke are the ones who wait politely with their teeth gritted all the way to the end and then don't rip out your throat, so "endure" sounds about right.

the -laH suffix after the verb indicates ability, and the negatory suffix AFTER the ability suffix thus indicates inability.

be' is the negating indicator, and coming immediately after "able to endure", changes the phrase to "not able to endure".

chugh is the conditional syntactic marker, which makes this an *if*.

The lack of a prefix to the verb implies "they".

ngagh is the verb meaning "to mate (with)"

bo- is the verb prefix indicating "you (plural) [verb] them"

jay' is an adverbial modifier which intensifies the sentence and turns the whole thing into invective. (an excellent thing to have in a language!)

So the *literal* translation is - "if they are not able to endure a joke, mate with them - intensely!" Near enough, I think.

H.

Actually, a slightly better version is as follows:

qID SIQlaHbe'chugh, bongaghjay'

Now, a little explanation, which may go some way to showing how complex Klingon can be... (if you really interested, it might also be worth viewing those words in a serif font, which allows you to tell the difference between an l (lowercase L) and an I (uppercase i)).

qID is the word for "joke". Nouns come first.

SIQ is the verb "to endure". I figure Klingons who *can* take a joke are the ones who wait politely with their teeth gritted all the way to the end and then don't rip out your throat, so "endure" sounds about right.

the -laH suffix after the verb indicates ability, and the negatory suffix AFTER the ability suffix thus indicates inability.

be' is the negating indicator, and coming immediately after "able to endure", changes the phrase to "not able to endure".

chugh is the conditional syntactic marker, which makes this an *if*.

The lack of a prefix to the verb implies "they".

ngagh is the verb meaning "to mate (with)"

bo- is the verb prefix indicating "you (plural) [verb] them"

jay' is an adverbial modifier which intensifies the sentence and turns the whole thing into invective. (an excellent thing to have in a language!)

So the *literal* translation is - "if they are not able to endure a joke, mate with them - intensely!" Near enough, I think.

H.

Congratulations on a project well done. You certainly are a cunning linguist.

H.

I tried, when writing this entry, to find information on in-jokes in Klingon on the KLI website. There was none. So, in 2002, this entry went into the Edited Guide. I mailed the KLI as a courtesy in case they were interested, but got no reply.

In 2003, however, the KLI added a new page: http://www.kli.org/wiki/index.php?Puns%20in%20the%20Vocabulary%20of%20tlhIngan%20Hol

The sheer number of jokes is staggering, and the obscurity of some of them is even more so.

I wrote to Mark Shoulson, one of the foremost members of the KLI, and inquired if he'd seen my page. Apparently, he tells me today, he had not. I am therefore, I think, allowed to be a little smug that I beat the KLI into "print" with the injokes - even if I only listed a very, very few. It's the thought that counts.

H.

I should now like to correct my earlier egregious error.

I used the straightforward verb prefix bo-.
I should not have. Despite what Craig David might say on the telly, in this case at least, bo- is not proper.

tI- is the IMPERATIVE prefix, which is what I should have used. Thus the correct rendition of this most useful phrase is:

qID SIQlaHbe'chugh, tIngaghjay'

Thank you, and my apologies.

H.

Arrgh.

Another error.

<> is not a suffix. It's a separate word.

qID SIQlaHbe'chugh tIngagh jay'

That really is it.

H.