http://lists.kli.org/pipermail/tlhingan-hol-kli.org/2018-October/008872.html

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Maltz says there is a verb wev that means "sketch" or "doodle." The object of this verb is the image that's drawn.  The notion is that it is a quick drawing, not a careful one.

In English, the word "doodle" implies that the person doing the doodling is not paying attention to what is being drawn or sketched.  The person is at a meeting or on hold on the phone and is bored perhaps. The Klingon word does not necessarily have this connotation.

Sometimes the picture that results from wev-ing is identifiable (so if you say DI'raq vIwev, hopefully you end up with a picture that is identifiable as a sheep-like animal).  But sometimes the result is not easily identifiable or namable — it's just circles or squiggles or 

jagged lines or a mishmash of things.  In that case, the "picture" can be called a yay.  Maltz thought that there must be some sort of connection, historically at least, between this yay and yay meaning "victory" or "triumph," but he said he didn't know what it was (or if, for sure, there is one).

Although the implement used to wev the drawing/sketch/doodle could be anything, it is not common to use wev if the implement is a rItlh naQ.

And, anticipating a question, I asked Maltz if there was any connection between this verb and the noun wev meaning "row (in a table/spreadsheet)."  He said he didn't think so.

Maltz said he'd never read "The Little Prince" in any language before and he was very curious about why there was so much fuss about the drawing of a sheep.  He's looking forward to finding out.

  - Marc