[tlhIngan Hol] Klingon Word of the Day: tIng

[kechpaja at kechpaja.com]

On Mon, Mar 01, 2021 at 05:47:54PM +0100, De'vID wrote:
>On Wed, 23 Dec 2020 at 18:30, Steven Boozer <sboozer at uchicago.edu> wrote:
>
>> 'amerI'qa' ‘ev chan ‘ev                 North America (GN) (qepHom 2016)
>> 'amerI'qa' tIng chan tIng       South America (GN) (qepHom 2016)
>>
>
>I don't recall if anyone has pointed this out before, but does anyone else
>find these backwards? Why isn't it {'ev chan 'ev 'amerI'qa'} and {tIng chan
>tIng 'amerI'qa'}? I'm probably just forgetting some rule that applies only
>to the compass directions.
>
>I wonder how a Klingon would then render "the American South" (i.e., the
>southern United States, a geographic and cultural region to the south of
>the country)? Ditto "the American North".

Thinking about this for a little while, I realize that you could just as 
easily describe North and South American as being simply {'ev} and 
{chan}, since North America is both to the North and West of South 
America, and South America sticks out to the East. Though I imagine 
Klingons just copied the English terms and translated them as literally 
as possible.

To answer your question, though, it's probably because the compass 
points are nouns. So you're really saying "the South (part) of America" 
and "the North (part) of America". 

  - SapIr