tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Dec 14 09:41:46 1999
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Re: cardinal directions
On Sun, 13 Dec 2099 20:39:00 -0500 David Trimboli
<[email protected]> wrote:
> jatlh charghwI':
> > It is sort of like the way the fiction writers like to speak as
> > if Klingon families and houses go on for many generations, yet
> > when they start speaking of houses, they always give the names
> > of living individuals or of one generation ahead, in the form of
> > "Worf, son of Mogh". So, who was Mogh the son of? What is the
> > name of their house? Ummm. Gee. We don't know. Nobody thought
> > about that.
> [. . .]
> > We don't know. We can't know.
>
>
> Mogh's father's name was Worf.
My whole point here is that there is nothing in Worf's name or
the way he gives his name in any of the movies or TV series that
would tell you that his grandfather's name is Worf. We also
don't know what Worf's grandfather's name is. There is no common
name holding these together. There is no tuq name that ties them
all together. We just get introductions like, "I am Worf" or "I
am Worf, Son of Mogh".
For a culture that places such a high priority on honor, on
family in the form of a "house" or {tuq}, and considers lineage
over many generations, it seems very odd that they have no
family name or tribe name. They only have names of individuals.
In cultures, especially patrilineal cultures, which have such an
intense focus on the family in this way, generally it is more
common for men to be known only by their family name. Their
individual name is secondary and in many cultures taboo except
between a boy and his mother or maybe, MAYBE in private between
a man and his wife. Klingon turns this on its head, and I think
this has a lot less to do with any interest in being alien to
Earth culture than it does with a bunch of clueless script
writers who want Klingons to sound primative with monosyllabic
or bisyllabic names (except for the women who sometimes get
three syllables). I'm sure they would have gone for "Thag" and
"Mondo" if they hadn't already been taken by other fictional
characters in other genres.
The cultural explanation does not match the naming convention.
The script writers did it. It has nothing to do with any effort
at building a believable culture.
> SuStel
> Stardate 99950.3
charghwI'