tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Mar 02 10:04:35 1999

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Re: time



On Tue, 2 Mar 1999 09:33:43 -0800 (PST) "Lieven L. Litaer" 
<[email protected]> wrote:

> Greetings.
> I've been thinking about what Marc Okrand said about telling time.
> 
> In his {'arlogh Qoylu'pu'}-message he said that hours are labeled, not
> conted, thus {rep wa'} and so on.
> Okay.
> On conversational Klingon he says "zero hours", midnight, is {pagh rep};
> 1900 hours, seven p.m. is {wa'maH Hutvatlh rep} and so on.
> 
> So what??

Apparently, just as we have different ways of referring to time 
in English among different subcultures, Klingons have different 
ways of referring to time. In English, I can say:

Thirteen hundred hours
One Pee Emm
One O'Clock in the afternoon

These all mean the same thing.

In Danish, 1:30pm is written "13:30" is vocalized as I'd 
translate, "Half of two" and 1:35 is called "Five after half of 
two." Go figure.

So, Klingons have an equivalent of military time {wa'maH 
wejvatlh wejmaH rep} and an equivalent to just calling the hour 
{rep wa'maH wej}.

> Another question: The answer to {'arlogh Qoylu'pu'} is usually
> {chorghlogh} (here for "eight o'clock"). Do we know how to say 7:15
> p.m.?? According to CK, I would say {wa'maHHutvatlh wa'maHvagh rep}, but

I'd say {wa'maH Hutvatlh wa'maH vagh rep}. Some put in even more 
spaces than I do, but in general, it seems like the number 
elements indicating powers of ten get merged with the digit 
number, and these "paired" number words are then separated from 
one another by spaces. It definitely makes them easier to read. 
One word per digit, basically.

In other words, these are numbers:

pagh
wa'
cha'
wej
los
vagh
jav
Soch
chorgh
Hut

These are "number forming elements":

-maH
-vatlh
-SaD
etc.

So, eleven is {wa'maH wa'}. One hundred twenty three is 
{wa'vatlh cha'maH wej}. See? Others likely will not like this, 
but it works for me and it fits the descriptions in TKD 
describing numbers, though the definitions in the word list are 
not consistent. He uses the term "number forming element" 
sometimes and not at others, even on the same word from one side 
of the dictionary to the other.

> that now seems to be wrong...
> Power Klingon gives us this:
> "check-out time is five p.m."
> {vagh rep bImejnIS}

Likely, that should have either been {rep vagh bImejnIS} or 
{wa'maH Sochvatlh rep bImejnIS}. He screwed up. It happens.
 
> But looking at the new  rule, I would say 
> {vaghlogh Qoy'lu'pu' bImejnISDI'} or 
> {rep vagh bImejnIS} or 
> {qaStaHvIS rep vagh bImejnIS}

I would understand any of this, though context better tell me 
this is PM and not AM.
 
> comments?
> 
> muHwI'

charghwI' 'utlh



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