[tlhIngan Hol] moon ph(r)ases, new adverbial {loQHa'}

[Will Martin]

My point here is that on Earth, when we look at the Moon, we are able to perceive a lot of detail that we ignore as we take not of the most obvious changes in the Moon over nightly observations made each month. The surface of the Moon that faces us is constant. The obvious change is the percentage of illumination.

We probably named the “Full Moon” before we started using terms referring to the lunar cycle, since it is based on the most obvious limited-time observation. It’s fully illuminated, so it is a Full Moon.

At some later time, we wanted more terms to describe other phases of the lunar cycle and arbitrarily chose the zero-illumination point as the zero mark of the cycle, calling that the New Moon, much like we chose midnight as the arbitrary zero point of the 24 hour day. We didn’t bother marking the difference between the two half-illuminated points in the cycle within a single word, calling them both Quarter Moon, differentiating between the two by describing whether it was approaching a Full Moon (Waxing) or a New Moon (Waning).

Likely, at some later point, wanting more detailed information for more days in the cycle, the Quarter Moon shifted toward describing all phases of the moon between half illumination and New Moon, and the Gibbous Moon referred to all phases between half illumination and Full Moon, again, adding Waxing and Waning to differentiate the two mirror cycles.

This is a very evolved system of descriptions, all based on the most obvious changes in the appearance of the Moon.

My point is that Praxis might have features that change more obviously than its illumination.

It might not, as the Moon does, always present the same face to the Earth at all times. This is, as I understand it, an uncommon feature of moons, and it can be accomplished two ways. Either, as is the case with the Moon, a difference between the center of mass and center of volume synchronizes the revolutions of its orbit and its rotation, or, unlike the Moon, the rotation is perpendicular to its orbit and the axis shifts in sync with its orbit (as in the North Pole of said moon always pointed toward the planet). In the second case the image of the Moon would always include the same surface area, but that 2-D image of its surface, as observed from the planet, would rotate, unlike what we see of the Moon on Earth.

In that case, if the orbit of that moon were tangential to the orbit of the planet, there would be no illumination phases of the moon. The visual image that moon from the surface would always be half-illuminated (like the cusp between Quarter Moon and Gibbous Moon), but the details of visual features of the surface of the moon would change as the moon rotates.

Instead of, as on Earth, the same quantity of illumination is visible at all points on the planet on a given day, though the Moon rises and sets at different times of the day depending on the longitude of the observer, different portions of the surface of the moon would be available to people at different latitudes on the planet on a given day, creating a kind of lunar Time Zone that varies depending on longitude.

Or far more commonly, the rotation and orbit of the moon might not synchronize, and the features across the moon might be sufficiently dissimilar to be more obvious a change from day to day than the percentage of illumination. Whatever more obviously changes when you look at it is more likely to become a noticed time cycle than the features that less obviously changes.

It might be that there are no time cycles that Klingons have ever noted concerning Praxis.

If that were true, they wouldn’t have terms for Praxis cycles like we have lunar cycles on Earth. They’d just describe what they see when they look at the moon or the Moon. The few Klingons who make it to Earth might look up, see what is to them a moon, not The Moon, and wonder what the big deal is that makes humans pay any attention to lunar cycles.

Ask that Klingon how to translate phases of the Moon, and it might be like asking them the different Klingon words for iPhone and Android Phone, or what the Klingon word is for Toyota Prius or the Klingon vocabulary for the types of clouds we see here in the sky on Earth, like cirrus or cumulus, which may not exist on Kronos.

pItlh

charghwI’ ‘utlh
(ghaH, ghaH, -Daj)




> On Jun 2, 2022, at 5:31 AM, De'vID <de.vid.jonpin at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Tue, 31 May 2022 at 12:51, MorphemeAddict <lytlesw at gmail.com <mailto:lytlesw at gmail.com>> wrote:
> Except during lunar eclipses (and what's the word or phrase for that),
> 
> {maS naptop}
>  
> the moon is always half illuminated, even if we can't see all of the lit surface from Earth. 
> 
> I think you mean from {Qo'noS}.
>  
> We could as easily talk about the left or right moon, depending on which half of the visible face of the moon we can see.
> 
> That would also depend on where on the planet one is making that observation. (The "left" side of the moon to an observer on the north pole is its "right" side to an observer on the south pole.)
> 
> -- 
> De'vID
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