tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Mar 03 05:56:08 1999
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Re: time
- From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: time
- Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1999 08:56:06 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)
- In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>
- Priority: NORMAL
On Tue, 2 Mar 1999 22:27:15 -0800 (PST) "Lieven L. Litaer"
<[email protected]> wrote:
> "William H. Martin" schrieb:
> > 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.
> I know what you mean (from french and german). I kept thinking that
> the way of telling time described on CK is the standard way. But now I
> recognize that THAT way of telling time is the militaray way, and the
> other is the more usual, commun, daily-use way of telling time. Right?
I'm not sure. Likely, yes. My gut level suspicion was that when
Okrand made CK, he was thinking that the military version WAS
the more common way to express time, but later he changed his
mind. He may have had some external influence that changed his
mind. I have no way of knowing.
All I know is that both ways are apparently valid and the newer,
simpler way takes less time to express and less mental
translation for me, so I'll likely embrace it once I read it a
couple more times.
> > 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.
> Yes, actually, I had several tries on this! wouldn't this be clearer:
> {wa'SaD Hutvatlh wa'maH vagh} This fits your word-per-digit theory
> better. I first misunderstood {wa'maH Hutvatlh wa'maH vagh} as "ten
> ninehundred fifteen".
>
> "Rose, Thornton" wrote:
> > So, can number forming elements be combined? Can I say either
> >{cha'netlh} or {cha'maHvatlh} for "twenty thousand (20,000)"?
> I don't know *if* you can, but if yes, it should be {cha'maHSaD}
> I had a similar question: Do we defenitely have to use the largest
> possible number-forming-element, or can we combine number words?
> is it {wa'vatlh SaD...} (this actually doesn't make sense to me, but
> I'll carry on)
> {wa'netlh}
Until we get examples from Okrand showing us that this kind of
reforming numbers is okay, I'd assume that it would be as much
gibberish as calling 200 in English "twentyty". There's a logic
to it, but that's not how the language works.
We do know that for time expressions, the number forming
elements from {wa'maH} to {cha'maH wej} are combined with
{vatlh}. We do not know for sure where spaces are placed when
this happens because we only got this on the audio tapes and
we've never seen it written.
I believe that we've also seen years expressed as {wa'maH Hut
vatlh HutmaH Soch} in the fine print on the Skybox cards, but
voragh can set us straight on that. He seems to just be
mirroring the way English handles numbers with the clock and
calendar. Beyond that, he has given us little information about
numbers, so I'd stick to using them the way TKD expresses them.
> (I think I've just answered my question to me myself, but I'll leave it
> there for you interested in my thoughts. The question I wanted to state
> just dissapeared, everything became clear.... :-)
> Er... I'll turn it around: Is the following correct?
>
> Any number is of the form
> {mI''uy' mI'bIp mI'netlh mI'Sa(nI)D mI'vatlh mI'maH mI'} where mI'
> stands for any digit from pagh to Hut.
Sounds right to me.
> (That reminds me of the way the numeric system is build
> a*10^4+b*10^3+c*10^2+d*10^1 is that right?)
Pretty much. That's the DECIMAL numeric system (powers of ten).
Those of us in computers deal with hexadecimal and binary as
well (base 16 and 2) and more rarely, octal (base 8). Klingon
number systems were originally ternary (base 3), so don't get
all uppity with references to THE numeric system.
> > One word per digit, basically.
> That's a good one! I'll try to remember.
>
> > I would understand any of this, though context better tell me
> > this is PM and not AM.
> It's AM, but that doesn't matter here.
Well, in the earlier reference, it was explicitly PM.
> Quvar muHwI'
> (gee..)
charghwI' 'utlh