tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Nov 16 02:54:07 2014

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[Tlhingan-hol] geometry and card games

De'vID ([email protected])



<p dir="ltr"><br>
The following are summaries of the geometry and card games information revealed at the qepHom. (Everything in between [brackets] are Marc Okrand&#39;s words, minus the bold formatting for Klingon words which was stripped when I cut and pasted his mail from my phone.)<br></p>
<p dir="ltr">Geometry:</p>
<p dir="ltr">[ra’Duch puj	“scalene triangle”
</p>
<p dir="ltr">tIQ in ra’Duch tIQ “equilateral triangle” is used for triangles only.  For other polygons with equal sides/angles, the word HoS is used instead.  For example:
</p>
<p dir="ltr">vagh reD mey’ HoS   “regular pentagon”
</p>
<p dir="ltr">A letbaQ HoS “regular rectangle,” of course, can also be called a meyrI’ “square.”
</p>
<p dir="ltr">While Don means “be parallel,” DonHa’ does not mean “be perpendicular.”  It means something like “be misaligned.”   The word for “be perpendicular” is leD and it’s normally used with a plural subject: leD rav tlhoy’ je “the floor and the wall are perpendicular (to each other).”
</p>
<p dir="ltr">The word leD is also used to indicate a right angle: tajvaj leD.  Other angles are:
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<p dir="ltr">tajvaj’a’ “obtuse angle” 
</p>
<p dir="ltr">tajvajHom “acute angle”
</p>
<p dir="ltr">Traditionally (meaning long ago), angles were measured using a unit called a law.  Using the decimal counting system, there were 243 lawmey in a gho (“circle”), and each angle in a ra’Duch tIQ (“equilateral triangle”) had 40.5 lawmey.
</p>
<p dir="ltr">These days, Klingons reckon angles the way most of the galaxy does.  The unit of measure (“degree”) is a lawrI’ (some people say law chu’, though that’s used less and less), and there are 360 lawrI’mey in a gho and 60 lawrI’mey in each angle of a ra’Duch tIQ.
</p>
<p dir="ltr">The point on a star is a QIn.
</p>
<p dir="ltr">The general word for “polyhedron” is yergh.]<br>

</p>
<p dir="ltr">Card games:</p>
<p dir="ltr">[Maltz said the card games he’d seen on Earth were all new to him and didn’t match up with any Klingon games he was familiar with.  Nevertheless, he’d become rather fond of one game, which he calls ’urghwI’ (“one that jabs or pokes”), a name he made up based on what he thought the Federation Standard name of the game was (but other Klingons probably would not understand this word in this sense).
</p>
<p dir="ltr">In this game and in others, Maltz noticed that cards were divided up into four types he called Deghmey (“symbols”).  He said he’d seen different kinds of Deghmey on Terran cards, but he was most familiar with one set, and he was able to find Klingon Deghmey equivalents for three of the four Terran Deghmey in this set:
<br>

<br>
meyrI’mey (“squares”) corresponds to diamonds. Maltz said he didn’t know why they were called diamonds since they don’t look like sparkling gems.  They aren’t really squares, either, but they are quadrilaterals, and that seemed to be good enough to use the Klingon Degh equivalent.
</p>
<p dir="ltr">pormey (“leaves”) corresponds to hearts.  Maltz recognized the symbol on the cards as being the same one he’d seen on valentine cards (a custom he didn’t understand at all), but they didn’t look like tIqDu’ (“hearts”) to him – human or Klingon or otherwise.
</p>
<p dir="ltr">Sormey (“trees”) corresponds to clubs.  Maltz didn’t know why the symbol was called a club since it didn’t look to him like a jeqqIj (“bludgeon”) or a ghanjaq (“mace”).  But it was, nevertheless, pretty close to the Klingon Sor.
</p>
<p dir="ltr">Maltz also had no idea why the remaining symbol was termed a spade.  He couldn’t figure out what it was, and it didn’t resemble any Klingon Degh.  He just called a spade ’eSpeD.]</p>
<p dir="ltr">--<br>
De&#39;vID</p>
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