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Are all the species name link to some gods, culture or human civilization ? I only notice 2...
Romulans; Roman
Their 2 native planet are name after the two mythological creator of rome, those who trace rome's border; romus & romulus. They also use roman rank; centurion, praetor...
Vulcan
Roman god of fire & forgery.
Klingon
Don't know... but they really look like ancient norse civilization, mostly in TNG.
"Chacun prend les limites de son propre champ de vision pour celle de l'univers"
- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)
"Wir müsse wissen. Wir werden wisser."
- David Hilbert (1862-1943)
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No link in the names whatsoever...
By far, the majority of species names have been made up by the scriptwriters.
The most important thing about the species during TOS and occasionally during TNG/DS9/Voyager, was that the alien species represented an analogy of an Earth culture or situation to enable an analogy story.
For example the Khoms and Yangs where the Communists (in this case Red China) and the Americans had degraded into a post atomic holocaust...
The Klingons originally represented the Russians in TOS, hence the cold war, with peace enforced by the Organian treaty, a situation seized upon in Star Trek VI, but as you said, in TNG onward the actual culture developed more along Norse/Japanese lines...
These similarities were not always clear cut into cultural and national similarities/stereotypes, sometimes the writers took a view of a smaller group of people and examined their situation or possible future in the episodes... Such as Eugenics in several episodes, but most notably Space Seed. Or cybernetics with the Borg. They have also covered ritual suicide, euthanasia... You name the topic and the chances are a species was created (or existing species expanded) to help tell the story.
This has always been a tradition of Star Trek (and sci-fi in general), to allow it to tell deep stories hiding it under the thin venier of Sci-Fi. And in that way, they managed to show a United Earth, Inter-racial relations, and even disply a political agenda at a time when many of the ideals were seen as subversive. And this tradition was upkept with some of the later shows.
DanG/Darth Gurden
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"Ad astrae per scientia" (To the stars through knowledge)
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Two more that I noticed some time ago while reading "Flashman and the Mountain of Light" by George MacDonald fraser:
Ferengi comes from Feringhee which is stated to be hindi for foreigner.
Jem'hadar comes from Jemadar , likewise Hindi for Lieutenant.
That's it...
-Dan.T
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Ferengi is indeed used for foreigners, and not just in HIndi -- it is also used in Arabic, Farsi, and Pushtu for the same. It is originally a bad transliteration into those languages of....French.Originally posted by Dandelionhead
Two more that I noticed some time ago while reading "Flashman and the Mountain of Light" by George MacDonald fraser:
Ferengi comes from Feringhee which is stated to be hindi for foreigner.
Jem'hadar comes from Jemadar , likewise Hindi for Lieutenant.
That's it...
-Dan.T
"War is an ugly thing but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feelings which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
John Stuart Mill
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I initially very much doubted that, as my first language IS french and the word for foreigner is "étranger" (from the old-timey "estrange", from which english gets "strange" and "stranger" and the like)... On rifling through a french dictionary though, I came across the word "forain", which is rarely used nowadays and mostly in the context of "fête foraine"- a county fair. Turns out it comes from the low latin "foranus" which in turn is the word for stranger. Huh!Originally posted by qerlin
Ferengi is indeed used for foreigners, and not just in HIndi -- it is also used in Arabic, Farsi, and Pushtu for the same. It is originally a bad transliteration into those languages of....French.
It's all one, man...
-Dan.T
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I thought that qerlin meant that these words were not originated from the French language, but from a deformation of the word "French" itself (or "Français").
Given that it sounds indeed close, this would makes sense... and we've seen stranger things happen with languages.
"The main difference between Trekkies and Manchester United fans is that Trekkies never trashed a train carriage. So why are the Trekkies the social outcasts?"
Terry Pratchett
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Nausicaa is also a name from the classics. Nausicaa was a friend of Ulysses in the Odyssey. Plus, lets not forget the Klingon homeworld, which is a 'Klingonisation' or Cronus, father of Jupiter.
On a pointless but interesting sidenote, Tolkien's 'Lost Road' reveals that the word 'Thereng' means Troll in one of the early elvish languages (the plural being 'Therengi')
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