Newsgroups: startrek.klingon
Date: Saturday, February 21, 1998 12:26 AM
Subject: Re: color (for Okrand)
TPO wrote in message
Ok, for colors we have:
chIS
SuD 'ej wov
SuD
SuDqu'
Doq
Doqqu'
qIj
...the basic colors, except brown; which (being military) I have needed
many times.
DloraH
What we call "brown" would be described in Klingon by using
the verb Doq "be red, orange." If the context is clear
(such as contrasting a brown thing with a thing that cannot
be described as Doq, such as something that's SuD
"blue, green, yellow"), Doq alone is good enough. Thus,
if there are two drinking cups, one brown and one blue, one
might say:
HIvje' Doq qaneH "I want the Doq cup"
(HIvje' "cup, glass, drinking vessel," qaneH "I want
it")
Only the brown cup could be described as Doq; the blue
cup is definitely not Doq since it is SuD.
On the other hand, to be more precise when talking about
the color (when, for example, there's a brown cup and a red
cup), Klingons would typically use the phrase:
Doq 'ej wovbe' "be orange/red and not be bright"
('ej "and," wov "be light, bright," -be' "not")
To get even more specific (to be able to refer to different
kinds of browns) would involve comparisons. For example:
Doq 'ej Qaj wuS rur "be orange/red and resemble kradge
lips"
('ej "and," Qaj "kradge ," wuS
"lip, lips," rur "resemble")
The lips of the kradge are presumably a particular shade of
brown.
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