tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Mar 17 09:12:30 2008
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Re: Klingon WOTD: togh (verb)
>This is the Klingon Word Of The Day for Sunday, March 16, 2008.
>
>Klingon word: togh
>Part of Speech: verb
>Definition: count
Used in canon:
cha' vI' vagh choQmey lutoghlu'
Number of Decks: 2.5 (BoP Poster)
Grammatical notes:
KGT 178: The suffix {-logh}, when attached to numbers, is used to count
the number of instances of something: {wa'logh} ("once"), {cha'logh}
("twice"), {vaghlogh} ("five times").
Cultural notes:
KGT 72-3: As is well documented, the Klingon counting system was
originally a ternary system (one based on three, with numbers higher than
three formed from the words for one, two, and three). Later, owing to
outside influences, it changed to a decimal system (based on ten). The
independent words for the numbers three through nine were not originally a
part of the Klingon counting system, but they had to come from somewhere.
The musical scale is the likely source. The word for the fourth musical
tone, {loS}, began to be used for the number four, and so on through the
eighth tone, {chorgh}. (The origins of the words {Hut} [nine] and the
suffix {-maH}, used in the words for ten, twenty, thirty, and so on, are
obscure.)
Related verbs:
{SIm} "calculate"; {chel} "add"
--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons