tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Mar 09 11:26:59 1999
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Ternary speculation (Klingon numbers)
quljIb:
> Additionally, there is often a numerical meaning assigned to some of
> the "letters". This could be reflected, not only in the counting
> system, but in the tlhingon musical note scale.
DloraH:
: Are you refering to:
: yu, bIm, 'egh, loS, vagh, jav, Soch, chorgh, yu (KGT p72)
: The original klingon number system was ternary (1,2,3 / wa', cha', wej).
: Later when they adapted the base ten system (to understand enemy technology)
: they used words from their musical scale. Already having 1, 2, and 3 they
: didn't use yu, bIm, 'egh for numbers; but continued with loS,... It is
: uncertain where 9 (Hut) came from.
quljIb:
> As for Hut (9) came from, perhaps it was another word for wejwej (3x3) in
> the old tlhIngan counting system? MO would have to confirm, of course.
DloraH:
: MO KGT p73: "...The origins of the words Hut ["nine"] and the suffix -maH,
: used in the words for "ten", "twenty", "thirty", and so on, are obscure."
1. Perhaps {yu, bIm, 'egh} were the names of the original *ternary* numbers
which have been preserved in musical tradition, which may also have once
been ternary and then later expanded to the octave. We know that the
decimal system now in use was borrowed much later from other Alpha Quadrant
races and replaced the older ternary system. It may well be that the
number names {wa', cha', wej, etc.} refer specifically to the set of
*decimal* numbers and are thus used in forming larger decimal numbers:
wa', wa'maH, wa'vatlh, wa'SaD, etc. The names themselves may be a clue to
the listener as to which numbering system you're using.
Numbering systems on Earth are frequently a mixed bag etymologically. In
English, for example, we have the Germanic numbers ten, hundred, thousand
for normal use as well as the Latinate prefixes deci-, kilo-, milli-, giga-
etc. for scientific or metric notation. Thus we have both kilograms as
well as hundred-weights.
2. Marc Okrand mentioned in his interview with charghwI' that a {cheb'a'}
weighed 9 times a regular {cheb}. Leaving the issue of their equivalents
in Federation kilograms for another thread, this may be a another trace of
the earlier ternary system. In other words, the widely used noun suffix
{-'a'} may have been used to raise the value of a number by a factor of
nine (or 3x3, i.e. 3 squared).
This would be a good question for Maltz, who was a science officer after all.
--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons