tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Feb 14 20:44:02 1996
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Re: KLBC:directions
- From: [email protected] (Alan Anderson)
- Subject: Re: KLBC:directions
- Date: Wed, 14 Feb 1996 23:45:23 -0500
nuqHm writes:
>N.E.S.W. ie compas directions:
[lots of nongrammatical suggestions cut]
A compass is a somewhat arbitrarily labeled device; I don't want to base
anything on the theory that an extraterrestrial culture would have come
up with anything similar. If we base direction words on what a compass
says, we might as well talk about the "red" and "black" directions.
(That's what my son's toy compass indicates -- one end of its needle is
painted red, and the other end is painted black.)
I believe direction names would be based on the rising and setting sun
long before anybody noticed that lodestones like to have a particular
orientation. Note that word "orientation" -- it means approximately"
facing east", or "in the direction of morning". "The Orient" is somewhat
synonymous with "The Land of the Rising Sun". If I were forced to choose
a way to name our four cardinal directions today, I'd select {po lurgh}
"East", {po poS} "North", {po nIH} "South", and {po 'o'} "West".
-- ghunchu'wI' batlh Suvchugh vaj batlh SovchoH vaj