tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Apr 27 05:03:10 1994
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DAYS OF WEEK, MONTHS & SEASONS IN KLINGON
- From: Joel Anderson <[email protected]>
- Subject: DAYS OF WEEK, MONTHS & SEASONS IN KLINGON
- Date: Wed, 27 Apr 1994 15:58:14 -0500
Glen passed this on to me a while back, with the hope that I could
pass it out on the Internet, and I've just gotten around to typing it
in. I share it with all interested in the tlhIngan-Hol in the hopes
that it may be of use.
[As always, typos, mispellings, and the like are clearly *my*
responsibility. I'll happily pass on to Glen any constructive
comments and feedback as I have the opportunity.]
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DAYS OF WEEK, MONTHS & SEASONS IN KLINGON
by G.F. Proechel
One of the frustrations in speaking and writing Klingon is the absence
of what for Earthlings are very elementary concepts. The days of the
week, months and seasons fall in that category. Since these concepts
of time are based on elementary facets of the reality of our solar
system and the interaction of a number of heavenly bodies within our
solar system, it is hardly surprising that beings who exist in a very
different astronomical reality would not have words which correspond
to these aspects of the solar system. We can talk about such things
in Klingon, however, without having to resort to English.
The concept of the week and its seven days was invented in a time when
astrologers were not really aware of the three outermost planets:
Neptune, Uranus, and Pluto. (Even now some people believe that we
have not discovered all the planets.) Thus, the Earth shared the
solar system with seven other heavenly bodies: the Sun, the Moon and
five other planets. It was from these seven heavenly bodies that the
concept of the week was developed and from which we derived the names
for the days of the week. Many Terran cultures seem satisfied to
refer to the days of the week by first day, second day, etc. This can
be easily accomplished in Klingon. That would give us:
Sun: jaj wa'DIch (It must be remembered that ordinals come AFTER the
thing they modify, so the equivalents of first, second, third, etc.
will always come AFTER jaj.)
Mon.:jaj cha'DIch
Tu.:jaj wejDIch
Wed.:jaj loSDIch
Th.:jaj vaghDIch
Fri.:jaj javDIch
Sat.:jaj SochDIch.
Since Sunday and Monday are named after the Sun and Moon respectively,
it would also be possibl to translate them literally. We don't know
the name of the Klingon Sun, at least it's not given in the Klingon
Dictionary, but we know that we can refer to it as the Home Star.
This would give us:
juH Hov jaj: Home Star Day for Sunday
and
maS jaj for Mon.
The Klingon Dictionary does give us a word for week: Hogh although we
have no information about what a week is in Klingon terms.
In the months as well we have no alternative but to number them from
one to twelve. Here's the result:
jar wa'Dich - Jan.
jar cha'Dich - Feb.
jar wejDich - Mar.
jar loSDich - Apr.
jar vaghDich - May
jar javDich - June
jar SochDich - July
jar chorghDich - Aug.
jar HutDich - Sept.
jar wa'maHDich - Oct.
jar wa'maHwa'Dich - Nov.
jar wa'maHcha'Dich - Dec.
This is perhaps a not very attractive solution, but it is a practical
one.
It should be noted that the word for year is DIS. This seems to be a
play on words: jar for month and dish for year.
The seasons too, present a problem, as we have no idea of the cycle of
nature which occurs in the Klingon home world. It would be possible
to describe our seasons in Klingon, however, and thus approximate the
idea of Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter. If we take the Klingon word
poH meaning time and extend its meaning to accomodate season we could
talk about the cold time (winter), the hot time (Summer), and the
green time (Spring). When we get to fall, the problem gets trickier,
as our concept of Fall comes from falling leaves and we do not have a
word for leaf. Furthermore, it is questionable whether we
can justify the verb pum: to fall as a stative verb. Our best bet
seems to be to take our cue from 4.2.9 and assume that pum can be used
as a noun as well as a verb. That would be give us the following
names for the seasons:
Spring: poH Sud
Summer: poH tuj
Fall: pum or pum poH
Winter: poH bIr
I hope this little essay makes it easier for people who want to talk
about time and seasons on planet Earth in Klingon. This is the best
we can do without creating neologisms at the moment.
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