tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jun 13 18:46:57 1994
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Re: KBTP in the Wall Street Journal [trans question ??]
Hu'tegh! nuq ja' [email protected] jay'?
=) P.S. While the spelling in the article of Klingon words is excellent, one
=) phrase from Glen's translation has a grammatical error: vagh 'Iwchap cha'
=) ghargh wIghaj. There's a missing "je" there, and it should obviously be
=) "DIghaj".
=I wish it was obvious to _me_. I can't parse that at all..
={DI/wIghaj} - we have them/it (If {ghargh} - serpent was the
=object, {wI} would be correct. And if we're dealing with {cha'}
=two serpents, aren't we missing a {-mey}?) {'Iwchap} is news to me.
=Or maybe the serpent's displaying five {'Iwchap}s?
=Maybe I should just ask: "What exactly do you think he _meant_ to write?"
=Would the missing {je} go between {ghargh} and {DIghaj}?
Oh, it's obvious enough, if you put in the {je} that Mark identified (yes,
between ghargh and DIghaj). The -mey suffix is optional in Klingon. The
phrase literally translates as: we have five blood-pies and two serpents.
Five loaves and two fish. In my more 'literal' translation in _Mark_, I
rendered this as vagh tIrSoj, cha' bIQHa'DIbaH je: five grain-foods and two
sea-animals.
It seems that I bear more responsibility for Glen schisming like this than
any other Klingonist, and it seems a good idea for me to keep quiet on this
(at least, on-list). It's sad, though, that Klingon had to join the long list
of artificial language communities to undergo a schism, and all on the
front page of the Wall St Journal, too.
Myself, I'm going to complete my Masters' thesis, translate Hamlet, and
pretend none of this is happening...
Nick.