[Tlhingan-hol] 125,000

[Robyn Stewart]

The Chinese system is a useful and productive 
one, but the pattern that we see in Klingon from 
ten to a million is that there is a new word for 
every factor of ten, just as American English has 
a new word for every factor of a thousand.

I like your attention-span-saving suggestion.

- Robyn

At 10:02 '?????' 6/6/2012, Felix Malmenbeck wrote:
>I've always just assumed that Klingon numbers 
>work in such a way that it'd be wa'bIp cha'netlh 
>vaghSaD, but I see now that that's not strictly 
>stated in TKD. I would assumed, however, that 
>it's sort of like the system commonly used in 
>modern-day China: You have names for 0-9, and 
>then words for 10, 100, 1 000 and - unlike in 
>English - 10 000 ("myriad"). Then, instead of 
>saying "one hundred thousands", you say "ten 
>myriads". Likewise, 1 000 000 is "100 myriads", 
>and 10 000 000 becomes "1 000 myriads". Then, 
>you have the next step: A y¨¬, which is ten 
>thousand squared, or 100 million.  To say "one 
>billion", you say "10 y¨¬", and ten billion is 
>"100 y¨¬", and so forth up to the zh¨¤o, which 
>is 10 000 to the third power, or a myriad myriad 
>myriads. Next is j¨©ng (10^16), g¨¡i (10^20), 
>z¨« (10^24) and so forth. 
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_numerals#Large_numbers 
>In other words, while most of us are used to a 
>convention which needs a new name for every 
>factor 1 000 (or, by the long count, 1 000 000), 
>most Chinese people [as I understand it] would 
>be used to one which takes a new step for every 
>factor 10 000. Therefore, I'd guess that the 
>next [commonly used but unknown to us] Klingon 
>number-forming element would be one for a 10^2; 
>the number which is 1 greater than 
>999,999,999,999 (which, similar to you, I think 
>would probably be called <HutbIp Hutnetlh HutSaD 
>Hutvatlh HutmaH Hut'uy' HutbIp Hutnetlh HutSaD 
>Hutvatlh HutmaH Hut>)*. Perhaps when explaining 
>such big numbers to laymen, Klingon 
>mathematicians refer to this element as 
><wa''uy''uy'>. 
>----------------------------------------- 
>WARNING: Going off on a tangent. 
>----------------------------------------- 
>*Another alternative, which requires more 
>syllables but may not be as demanding on your 
>attention span, is <HutbIp'uy' Hutnetlh'uy' 
>HutSaD'uy'...>. That way, you don't have to wait 
>twelve syllables before you find out what order 
>of magnitude you're dealing with; it'll always 
>be right there in the third. One could of course 
>imagine all sort of systems. For example, one 
>that squares upwards after 'uy': If the next 
>number-forming elements is called X, and 1X = 
>1'uy''uy' = 10^12, then the next one, Y, would 
>be 1'uy'X (10^18), but 1XX (10^24), and Z would 
>be 10^48. So, if you wanted to say 24*10^42 (24 
>tredecillion), you'd have to say cha'maH'uy'XY 
>loS'uy'XY. Dunno if that'd be practical, but you 
>never know with alien species :P 
>________________________________________ From: 
>Qov [robyn at flyingstart.ca] Sent: Wednesday, June 
>06, 2012 17:17 To: De'vID jonpIn; tlhIngan-Hol 
>Subject: Re: [Tlhingan-hol] 125,000 I see that 
>TKD says "some of the number forming elements 
>for higher numbers are ..." and stops at 'uy'. 
>Clearly there are more we don't know. That 
>suggests to me that there is one for each place 
>up as high as Klingons need to count before 
>whatever their scientifix notation is cuts in. 
>But just as people who want to be clear when 
>talking to an international audience avoid words 
>like billion and say "a thousand million" or "a 
>mllion million,"  I imagine 423,198,765,432 
>could be understood as loSbIp cha'netlh wejSaD 
>wa'vatlh HutmaH chorgh'uy' Soch bIp javnetlh 
>vaghSaD loSmaH wejmaH cha'. - Qov At 01:56 
>'?????' 6/6/2012, De'vID jonpIn 
>wrote: >Qov: > >>> qepHomwIjDaq jatlh ghojwI', 
>"chay' <125,000> jIjatlh?" > >*{wa' chorghvI' 
>'uy'} > >No, not really, but I wish *{-vI'} 
>generalised in this way (from 
>{vatlhvI'}). > >qurgh: > >> wa'bIp cha'netlh 
>vaghSaD > >Qov: > > That makes sense. Is that 
>canonical, qurgh? > >Why else would we have 
>{bIp} and 
>{netlh}? > >-- >De'vID >_________________________ 
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