tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Mar 09 05:11:08 2004
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Re: if not {pemHov}...
- From: "QeS lagh" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: if not {pemHov}...
- Date: Tue, 09 Mar 2004 23:10:29 +1000
- Bcc:
ghItlhpu' Quvar:
>Indeed. The best proof for that is to watch at the terran words: "sun" and
>"star", "soleil" et "étoile", "slunce" i "hvezda", "güneS" ve "yildiz",...
>just to name a few examples.
>These words are all completely different.
That's a good point. Even the Maya, who are renowned as having one of the
most advanced ancient astronomies in the world, have different words: {kin}
"sun" and {ec} "star" (Yucatec Maya). Similarly, Ancient Egyptian also makes
the distinction: {ra} "sun" and {sbA} "star".
>Or maybe they didn't need a new word for planet, but yuQ could have been
>something else before, like "world" for instance. See the resemblance of
>{yuQ} and {juHqo'}!
I'll just point out that {yuQ} and {juHqo'} aren't quite the same. AFAIK,
{qo'} means more "country, empire, realm":
{qo' tu'lu'pu'be'bogh} "the undiscovered country"
than "planet" (although {juHqo'} is used to mean "homeworld"), and if {yuQ}
meant "world" in this sense, {qo'} probably would have dropped out of use.
However, your point remains valid. English has this distinction. Most
western European languages took the word from Greek, too, indicating that
they probably didn't need a word as badly as the Greeks did.
To sum up: I agree with the arguments that {Hov'a'} probably isn't the
original word for "sun"; these arguments make good points. Quvar noted the
differences between the words in Terran languages, and this is one time
where the logic is justifiably expandable to Klingon.
I just don't see why {Hov'a'} couldn't be an acceptable *synonym* (and not
necessarily just a fill-in while we wait for the real word); supergiant
stars aren't usually referred to in everyday conversation, and I can't see
what else it could mean.
Savan.
QeS lagh
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