tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Jun 25 02:02:50 2005

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Re: Correct/canon usage of numbers

QeS lagh ([email protected]) 

jIja'pu':
>If both usages are found in canon, both usages are probably correct.
>Nevertheless, Okrand's forms tend to be those that use suffixes, and it
>would seem that common usage on the list prefers to use them as suffixes
>(hence {wa'maH}) and not full words (which would be {wa' maH}); in the
>general case, at least. There is some canon that explicitly uses them as
>full words, though, which I'll cite a bit later.

jang Voragh:
>If Okrand has been inconsistent in this, so have other languages.  E.g. 
>English "twenty one" vs. "twenty-one" vs. (rarely) "twentyone" or Spanish 
>"veinte y uno" vs. "veintiuno".

And to a certain extent, that's what we should expect from Klingon, too. I 
like the fact that there are a lot of things we can do in a few different 
ways: it means that it's possible to develop your own personal "style" of 
Klingon.

jIja'taH:
>In HolQeD 8:3 (pp. 2-4), Okrand gave us a series of terms for "century",
>"millennium" and "myriad": {vatlh DIS poH}, {SaD DIS poH} and {netlh DIS
>poH}. These are given exactly like that, with no actual number - although
>they can be used with one: MO gives {cha'vatlh DIS poH} "two centuries; a
>two-hundred-year period of time" in the same article.

jangtaH Voragh:
>Hmm... my notes have all the words separately written:
>   With longer time periods, such as a century ({vatlh DIS poH}), or
>   a period of 10,000 years ("myriad", perhaps) ({netlh DIS poH}), the
>   words {ret} or {pIq} may be used in place of {poH}, e.g., {cha' vatlh
>   DIS poH} "two centuries", but {cha' vatlh DIS ret} "two centuries ago."
>   The phrase {cha' vatlh ben} would mean "200 years ago". The choice of
>   construction depends on what is being emphasized: in this case, the
>   total number of centuries (two) or the total number of years (200).
>At least in the paragraph, Okrand is consistent: {cha' vatlh DIS poH}, 
>{cha' vatlh DIS ret}, {cha' vatlh ben}.  Does someone have this issue of 
>HolQeD easily at hand and can check?

HIvqa' veqlargh! You're right; it seems I misread this. While I don't have 
the original article (I got this from the transcript of the HolQeD article 
that maHvatlh posted at http://klingonska.org/canon/1999-09.txt), even the 
transcript clearly shows spaces at these points.

jIja'taH:
>On Skybox trading card S15, the phrase {tera' vatlh DIS poH} "Terran 
>century" is used, which
>clearly indicates that this type of phrase does not need to take numbers. 
>(By analogy, one would expect that others like {maH DIS poH} "decade" might 
>be possible, too.)

jangtaH Voragh:
>Many of us have also suggested *{SaD DIS poH} "millennium".

This is also found in the aforementioned transcript. Again, I unfortunately 
don't have the actual HolQeD issue to check against, but if it's in the 
article, it's somewhat more than a suggestion, qar'a'? {{:)

Savan,

QeS lagh
taghwI' pabpo' / Beginners' Grammarian


not nItoj Hemey ngo' juppu' ngo' je
(Old roads and old friends will never deceive you)
     - Ubykh Hol vIttlhegh

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