tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Nov 24 09:06:22 1999
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
RE: cardinal directions
- From: "Andeen, Eric" <[email protected]>
- Subject: RE: cardinal directions
- Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 10:07:20 -0700
jatlh ter'eS:
> >If you put <chan> at the top of your map, then the compass
> >rose for the three cardinal points looks remarkably like the
> >Klingon trefoil!
jatlh ~mark:
> I truly doubt that was a coincidence.
>
> Actually, I rolled my eyes at this chan/'ev/tIng thing. OK,
> Klingons like threes, we get the picture, but that doesn't
> mean they're OBSSESSED with the number! We like tens, but
> we still have four cardinal directions, divide our feet into
> twelve inches, etc. Four seems a lot more sensible... But
> then, I don't know much about how Terran cultures in
> general make their directions. I know that places like
> Hawai'i develop directions like "seaward" and "inland" and
> so on. Maybe there are places that use a 3-way deal like
> Klingon. But hey, we have it, and I even get my "East",
> which I needed both for Jonah and the Tower of Babel
> translations.
Well, some Native American cultures have six. This Klingon arrangement, by
the way, is the minimum needed to be able to express the whole range of
directions by combining *positive* multiples of the cardinal direction
vectors. I rather like it.
pagh