This unit introduces various words for measuring things and saying how long or wide etc. they are.

'ab

The word 'ab means specifically to have a height of …, but due to a difference in how English and Klingon measures things, it may sometimes be translated as to have a length of ….

For something that effectively has only one measurement (in other words, it has a significantly greater measure in one dimension than in the other two—such as a pole or a rope), 'ab will give you the measurement of that greatest dimension. In English we usually call this the length, but Klingons call it the height. Klingons apparently imagine measuring such long objects standing on end, instead of stretched out along a surface.

juch and 'aD

The word juch means to have a width of … and the word 'aD means to have a length of …

For something that effectively has only two measurements (in other words, one of the dimensions is negligible compared to the other two—such as a lid or a table top), 'aD will give you the length and juch will give you the width. Klingons apparently imagine measuring such flat objects lying down and not standing up on the edge.

When measurements are given for all three dimensions of a being or thing, then the actual orientation is considered and 'ab is used for height, juch is used for width, and 'aD is used for length (sometimes called depth in English, but only for depth going back, 'aD is never used for depth under a surface).

Saw'

The word Saw' means to have a depth of … and is used for giving the measurement of depth under a surface.

'uj

In this unit the Klingon measurements 'uj and 'uj'a' are used, translated here as uj and uja (i.e. the English names are just the Klingon words without the apostrophes), pluralized as ujes and ujas, respectively.

We do not ask you to convert between Klingon units and English units in this course, so you do not need to memorize the exact length of an uj or uja. However, in case you would like to know, an uj is about 35 cm or 14 inches, an uja is nine ujes, so about 3.15 m or 124 inches (10 foot 4).