tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Feb 15 09:13:34 1996
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Re: KLBC:fractions & directions
>Date: Wed, 14 Feb 1996 16:21:26 -0800
>From: [email protected]
>In a message dated 96-02-14 12:29:26 EST, charghwI' writes:
>>Well, for starters it's a sentence and not a noun. One has divided three
>>(isn't that backwards?). Moreover, bear in mind that bare nouns in
>>Klingon, as in English, usually mean "one of them", "two of them", etc. in
>>context. If You were talking about... I dunno, countries, and said "wej
>>wavta' wa'", I'd think you meant that one of the countries had managed to
>>divide three others (perhaps from each other, politically, maybe breaking
>>up an alliance.)
>As you say, English uses number words in the same way. If, in English, I
>wanted to explain something using a number, I could easily make you
>understand me. Klingon can do the same thing. You'd have reason for talking
>about, say, dividing, and you'd make it clear that we are talking about
>mathematical division. (For all we know, though, {wov} could only be used
>mathematically, or not!)
Good point. I still find "wa' wavbogh wej" less than intuitive, but your
point makes a certain amount of sense.
>[. . .]
>>Besides, last I looked magnetism flowed as much south as
>>it did north; the business about one being forward and one backward is
>>completely arbitrary; why should Klingons have picked the same way?
>[. . .]
>>>using poS & nIH for left and right of spinward ?
>>
>>Wouldn't trust the magnetic field anyway; the usual definition of
>>north/south in astronomy depends on rotation (most planets rotate): the
>>rotation is clockwise around the south pole.
>The usual *human* definition, that is. This definition is completely
>arbitrary; why should Klingons have picked the same way? :) Besides, we
>only have our one star's nine planets to compare, and even all of these don't
>rotate in the same direction. For direction names, we'd need a Klingon to
>tell us what they are. For Earth measurements, you could always state a
>course bearing ({He pagh pagh pagh} for north, {He wa chorgh pagh} or {He
>wavatlh chorghmaH} for south, etc.). Too bad we can't give a distance in
>anything except Kellicams!
Indeed! The poster had been looking for definitions of the human
directions, so that's what I was focussing on. But there's no reason that
Klingons should do things the same way (we had a discussion about this a
few weeks ago, I recall). Perhaps they indicate directions on-planet
towards famous cities/landmarks. In Biblical Hebrew, "West" and "South"
are often referred to as "Seaward" and "Negev-ward" respectively,
i.e. towards the Mediterranean sea (which is west of Israel) and towards
the Negev desert, in the south. I think these words are even used when the
action is taking place somewhere else, as fossilized constructions. There
are many different options; there need not BE translations for
"north/south/east/west".
~mark