tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Jul 27 12:50:03 2000
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RE: KLBC: relative clauses again (and some un-relative-clause stuff)
Patrick Masterson:
> Would "yuQ yor" work to mean "North"? I thought of an
> expression with "Dung" but that sounds wrong.
pagh:
: Ah, yes. We actually have direction words now in Klingon: <'ev>, <tIng> and
: <chan>. They came from a HolQeD article - Volume 8, number 4. They refer to
: the area in a given direction from the speaker (if used alone), or from the
: noun they're attached to if used in a noun-noun construction.
:
: <chan> is due east, <'ev> is northwestward (about 320 degrees on an Earth
: compass), and <tIng> is southwestward (about 220 degrees). North would
: therefore be roughly <tIng chan>, or maybe <tIng tIng chan>.
Patrick:
> tIng chan...east of southwest...wouldn't that be south? And how would one
> say "west"? tIng 'ev chan? Southwest of northwest of east?
Klingons use three cardinal directions ('ev, tIng, chan); humans use four
(north, south, east, west). Here's a quick sketch to visualize this:
'ev \
\
\_______ chan
/
/
tIng /
The angle between {'ev} and {tIng} is actually a bit more acute than I can make
it using ASCII characters -- imagine a Klingon tristella tipped on its side,
pointing to the right. (What an amazing coincidence!)
I have some example sentences from Okrand's HolQeD 8.4 article at home to show
how this works in practice, which I'll post later tonight unless pagh beats me
to it.
> (And why is this so complicated?)
Because that's the way Klingon refer to directions. You have to deal with it.
Besides, there would be no challenge (and no fun!) if Klingon worked exactly
like English; that's all part of the game. <g>
--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons