tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed May 03 10:45:30 2000
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RE: Klingon WOTD: wovmoHwI' (n)
Voragh:
>> However the good news is that because of {maSwov} "moonlight"
>> we suspect that there MAY be a noun *{wov}
Eodrakken
> I was afraid you might say that. A word I was really wanting
> recently was "starlight" (Hovwov?). Have we ever seen that
> in canon?
Nope. Just {maSwov}. Though if you want to use it, it would be probably be
understood. Remember to flag it with an asterisk on the list to keep people
from wasting time trying to look it up. It wouldn't hurt too to gloss it the
first time you used it: e.g. *{Hovwov} (starlight).
| Or sunlight.
Only if the ancient {tlhIngan Hol} speakers realized that their sun - that big,
hot light in the daytime sky - was also a star like those tiny, cool lights in
the nighttime sky.
:> It would be most interesting if Klingons referred to their
:> sun [...] as "major star", because it would imply that their
:> astronomers realized that the sun is a kind of star early in
:> their history.
If not, they'd probably have two distinct words - like most Terran languages I
know of. Language and vocabulary usually evolve long before a correct
understanding of astronomy.
| What's the word for "sun", if there is one?
We don't know.
| (is there a name for the sun of Qo'noS?)
Officially, no. However, "Amrita system" was used by Capt. Sulu's science
officer Valtaine (sp?) to refer to the Klingon star system in the ST6
novelization, but it wasn't heard in the final cut of the movie. Movie
novelizations are usually based on early drafts of the movie script, so I'd
consider this semi-canonical (others disagree). But since Paramount cut the
line, it may be that they either weren't happy with it or just decided to
postpone revealing the name for the Klingon sun. (Remember how long it took
before they settled on Kronos for the Klingon homeworld?) Be that as it may,
I'm sure that Amrita was only the Federation's 23rd century name for the star,
not the native Klingon word anyway, so it doesn't help us.
quljIb:
: any other ideas?
There have been several suggestions. The one I prefer is *{juHHov} "homestar"
on the pattern of {juHqo'} "homeworld" even though homestar sounds very modern,
typical of space-faring civilizations. It does have the advantage of being
fairly transparent though.
I've also seen *{pemHov} "daytime star" - remember that a {jaj} is a full
day-plus-night cycle (on Earth 24 hours), not the daytime {pem} part of the day
{jaj}.
--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons