tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Apr 04 23:25:23 1994
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Don't Worry?
>From: joel peter anderson <[email protected]>
>Date: Tue, 5 Apr 94 8:53:19 CDT
>> How would you say "Don't worry" in Klingon? I'd say in most situations
>> "rejmorgh yIDaQo'". That's not what the English has, but remember: there's
>> no such thing as a perfect word-for-word translations because even words
>> don't mean the same between languages.
>hmmm... I'd thought about "yISaHbe'! yIQuch!" to translate the immortal
>admonition of baHbe' maqvarrIn... maybe "yISaHQo'! yIQuch!"?
Well, obviously it can't be "*yISaHbe'", since you can't have "-be'" on
imperatives. But my whole point was that "rejmorgh yIDaQo'" captures the
intent *better* than something like "yISaHQo'", at least to me, despite the
fact that it doesn't share analogous grammar with the original. It's
important not to be bound by making your translations as word-for-word as
possible, thinking "I want to say *exactly* the same thing in Klingon as I
do in English." That way lies turning Klingon into an English code in the
long run, and bad translations in the short run. I could give you examples
of bizarre-sounding constructions that are perfectly natural and normal in
their respective languages, but that would get tedious. Just remember to
try to break free and cast the sentence as it suits the *meaning* best,
even if that means something radically different from how it was stated in
the original.
~mark