[tlhIngan Hol] Expressing Anno Domini

[Steven Boozer]

AFAIK all Terran dates are read in cardinal numbers, as if you’re reading each digit individually (e.g. 2-0-1-7):

TM, ® (c) je tera' DIS wa'-Hut-Hut-loS Paramount Pictures.
TM, ® c.1994 Paramount Pictures. (SkyBox Copyright)

tera' poH jaj wa', jar wa', jaj loSDIch, DIS wa'-Hut-Hut-chorgh: HovpoHvetlh latlh nab yIHutlh
Save this Stardate:  Sunday, January 4, 1998. (STX)

tera' jar Soch, DIS wa' Hut jav Hut, maSDaq SaqmeH Qu' wa'DIch HochHom turlu'taHvIS, wej logh lengwI'pu' pa'mey 'oH APOLLO wa'maH wa' ra'ghom bobcho' COLOMBIA'e'.
The Apollo 11 Command Module, Columbia, was the living quarters for the three-person crew during most of the first manned lunar landing mission in July 1969. (NASM)

This also applies to century names:

tera' vatlh DIS poH cha'maH loS bIyIn jeSlaHpa' Hoch
Be the first to journey to the 24th century. (STX)

… qItI'nga' Duj.  tera' vatlh DIS poH cha'maH wej HochHom lo'lu'taH
the K'Tinga-class remained in use for most of the 23rd century.  (S15)

tera' vatlh DIS poH cha'maH loS bong QongmeH qItI'nga' Duj tI'ang ghompu' DIvI' 'ejDo' 'entepray'
A sleeper ship of this [K'Tinga] class, the T'Ong, was encountered in the 24th century by the USS Enterprise. (S15)

jIvIb. qaSDI’ vatlh DIS poH cha’maH Hut, jImev.
I time-travel to the 29th century.
(lit. “I time-travel into the future. When Century 29 happens, I stop.”) (qep'a' 2016)

Note the ordinal number isn’t used:  cha’maH loS  not *cha’maH loSDIch.

The one exception I know of was the Klingon date in the “Message To Kronos” where the number was read in decimal groups, not individual digits:

poH tuj bI'reS nungbogh wa' jaj qeylIS DIS chorghvatlh loSmaH jav qaStaHvIS  [sic]
In the days that follow the summer solstice in the Year of Kahless 846. ('u'-MTK)

N.B.  chorghvatlh loSmaH jav “eight-hundred forty six” NOT chorgh-loS-jav “eight four six”.

Is this because it’s a Klingon date, as opposed to those peculiar Terran dates?  Or because it’s part of a dating formula, “the Year of Kahless”?  Or because it’s a relatively low number (say under a thousand)?

--Voragh



That I don't know. The Skybox canon suggests that we should spell out the dates. I don't know of other date canon (although I wouldn't be surprised if there was something in Monopoly). Perhaps Voragh may be able to help us in that area.

qurgh

On Fri, Sep 22, 2017 at 1:30 PM, mayqel qunenoS <mihkoun at gmail.com<mailto:mihkoun at gmail.com>> wrote:
Another interesting question which came to mind is the following..

Do we always need to say {tera' DIS wa'-wa'-pagh-pagh} for "1100" (c.e. or b.c.e.), or can we say too {tera' DIS wa' SaD wa' vatlh} ?

qunnoq

On Sep 22, 2017 8:23 PM, "qurgh lungqIj" <qurgh at wizage.net<mailto:qurgh at wizage.net>> wrote:
I think this is the same as in English. If I say "It happened in the year 300" no one knows if I mean CE or BCE, but they assume I mean CE.

If we had an easy way to talk about negative numbers, then I'd use that for BCE.

I don't know if I'd get "100 BCE" from {wa' vatlh DIS qaSpa' tera' DIS pagh} if we hadn't had had this conversation first (or there was more context included). Maybe {tera' DIS wa'-pagh-pagh qaSpa' tera' DIS pagh, jagh luHIv} - "Terran year 100, before Terran year 0 happened, they attacked the enemy.", but that still feels clunky to me. There's got to be a better way to say it.

Maybe {tera' DIS wa'-pagh-pagh qaSpa' bov motlh, jagh luHIv} - "Terran year 100, before the usual era happened, they attacked the enemy". I'm not a fan of that either really.

qurgh


On Fri, Sep 22, 2017 at 1:00 PM, mayqel qunenoS <mihkoun at gmail.com<mailto:mihkoun at gmail.com>> wrote:
qurgh:
> I mostly use {tera' DIS} when talking about current Earth time

Initially, I thought of using the {tera' DIS}; but the problem is that if I say {tera' DIS wa' vatlh}, then how would someone know if I mean "100 c.e." and not "100 b.c.e." ?

Now that I think of it again, perhaps we could say something like {wa' vatlh DIS qaSpa' tera' DIS pagh} for "100 years b.c.e.", and {wa' vatlh DIS qaSpu'DI' tera' DIS pagh} for "100 years c.e."

But the problem is, are the above understood by the average reader ? If you read these, would you understand what I'm trying to say ?

qunnoq

On Sep 22, 2017 7:48 PM, "qurgh lungqIj" <qurgh at wizage.net<mailto:qurgh at wizage.net>> wrote:
tera' DIS... ;)

I use "CE" instead of "AD". That could be {bov motlh}, but I mostly use {tera' DIS} when talking about current Earth time.

qurgh

On Fri, Sep 22, 2017 at 12:44 PM, mayqel qunenoS <mihkoun at gmail.com<mailto:mihkoun at gmail.com>> wrote:
Can someone tell me how to say in klingon "Anno Domini" ?

I know we can say {qeylIS bov nubwI'} for "before the era of qeylIS". So initially I thought of saying {christ bov cho'wI'}.

But then I realized that the verb {cho'} means "to succeed to authority", and not "to succeed (in general)".

So, I came up with {christ bov bov veb} for "the next era of the era of christ".

I think this is correct, but again I'm not certain..

Would you understand it if you saw it, without knowing the intended meaning ? Can you think of something better ? And if you can, can you tell me too ?

qunnoq
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