Ha, interesting. Ironically, watching TV a show actually produces a hypnotic state anyway, so....
Must...buy...toaster...polish....
Must...buy...toaster...polish....
Was Vulcan originally meant to be in Sol system?
- Thread starter Christopher
- Start date
Why do we worry that other species are using "human" names for stuff? Because humans are so puny, and so recent an addition to the interstellar community, that nobody would stoop to doing that? Well, the solution is obvious - humans are the ones doing the using of foreign names.
It very much appears that the god Apollo wasn't named by humans. Rather, humans simply learned that the god's name was Apollo, straight from the horse's mouth. It would be simplicity itself to assume that humans also learned that Romulans are called Romulans (possibly as per their sacred ancestor, brother to a guy named Remus) around 2,000 BC, thanks to an interstellar visitor from the Romulan culture telling them so; the knowledge would erode to human myth in time for Rome to be founded. The very same visitor might have mentioned that the name of the place is Vulcan, a hot spot with lots of fiery action and a Forge, and thus the name Vulcan would gain precedence over previous human names for the obligatory fire god.
Klingons similarly appear to be old hands at this interstellar interaction business. Language and terminology should get around in the Trek environment; for all we know, they got Vulcan from Vulcans, but we got Terran from Klingons!
The rest is just false etymology, because our linguists won't accept the obvious truth of our words coming from outer space, and will invent any convoluted nonsense to avoid surrendering to the facts.
However, what "equivalent cultural histories"? There's nothing Roman about the Romulans or the Remans, save for the names. There's nothing Vulcan about the Vulcans. The names are misapplied, to the point of hiding any trace of the underlying facts: a leader becomes Praetor without much resembling old Roman Praetors (save for the fact that he leads, and even that is a contradiction rather than a correlation because a real Praetor would not lead Rome).
It's no different from what the rest of scifi is doing, and in good keeping with how humans name things - vaguely insectoid aliens may be humorously dubbed Bugs, there are Puppeteers and Sirens around, etc. Caitians, Vendorians and the like could fall in the same category: humans invent a funny but inappropriate name. Although as said, in the Trek universe, the truth may lie deeper in the past, with the roles reversed.
Timo Saloniemi
It very much appears that the god Apollo wasn't named by humans. Rather, humans simply learned that the god's name was Apollo, straight from the horse's mouth. It would be simplicity itself to assume that humans also learned that Romulans are called Romulans (possibly as per their sacred ancestor, brother to a guy named Remus) around 2,000 BC, thanks to an interstellar visitor from the Romulan culture telling them so; the knowledge would erode to human myth in time for Rome to be founded. The very same visitor might have mentioned that the name of the place is Vulcan, a hot spot with lots of fiery action and a Forge, and thus the name Vulcan would gain precedence over previous human names for the obligatory fire god.
Klingons similarly appear to be old hands at this interstellar interaction business. Language and terminology should get around in the Trek environment; for all we know, they got Vulcan from Vulcans, but we got Terran from Klingons!
The rest is just false etymology, because our linguists won't accept the obvious truth of our words coming from outer space, and will invent any convoluted nonsense to avoid surrendering to the facts.
However, what "equivalent cultural histories"? There's nothing Roman about the Romulans or the Remans, save for the names. There's nothing Vulcan about the Vulcans. The names are misapplied, to the point of hiding any trace of the underlying facts: a leader becomes Praetor without much resembling old Roman Praetors (save for the fact that he leads, and even that is a contradiction rather than a correlation because a real Praetor would not lead Rome).
It's no different from what the rest of scifi is doing, and in good keeping with how humans name things - vaguely insectoid aliens may be humorously dubbed Bugs, there are Puppeteers and Sirens around, etc. Caitians, Vendorians and the like could fall in the same category: humans invent a funny but inappropriate name. Although as said, in the Trek universe, the truth may lie deeper in the past, with the roles reversed.
Timo Saloniemi
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