[Tlhingan-hol] Sunlight and Starlight

[Bellerophon, modeler]

Interesting thought, Seruq. The face of a moon could be anywhere from 0% to
100% lit. A completely dark moon is never above the horizon at night, so
that's not an issue. But a crescent Praxis casts a negligible amount of
moonlight on Qo'noS. It comes back to what Klingons mean by "maSwov," or
for that matter what English speakers mean by "moonlight."

What conditions prevail when we speak of moonlight in English? We refer to
any light from the moon as moonlight, even if it's insufficient to
illuminate our environs, but the term "moonlight" makes us picture enough
light coming from the moon to provide illumination. Certainly when the moon
is full, the earth's night side is bathed in moonlight. Our use of the term
"moonlight" has subtleties from astronomy, poetry, etc., that could never
be conveyed to a Klingon simply by telling him it means "maSwov."

So what does "maSwov" mean to a Klingon? How does he speak of it? He
probably doesn't say anything like "puH Say'moHtaH maSwov," but in a poetic
mood he might say something equally strange to us, like "yavDaq peD maSwov
'e' munargh ramvam." And we might well use "maSwov" in accordance with
canon, yet have Maltz tell us that no Klingon would phrase it that way.

"tIHmey" aren't only beams or rays of light, of course, though that doesn't
mean that jul tIH and Hov tIH (or perhaps jultIH and HovtIH) might not be
used to mean sunlight and starlight, even if not collimated. But if I ever
meet a Klingon hippy chick, I bet her name will be maStIH.

~'eD

Qo'noS bavlaw' cha' maS. maS wa'DIch pong 'oH pIraqSIS'e' 'ej maS cha'DIch
pong 'oHlaw' qorvIqIS'e'. ("Corvix"=qorvIqIS?)


On Sun, Aug 18, 2013 at 10:51 PM, Seruq <seruq at bellsouth.net> wrote:

> Through its phases a moon can be bright or dark.  The only time we get
> moon light is when the moon
> appears bright.  maSwov could come from "bright moon".  But since the sun
> and stars are always
> bright, contructions like julwov and Hovwov could be considered odd, like
> "duh, of course they're
> bright."
>
> What is the canon for tIH?
>
>
> - DloraH
>
>
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