tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jun 20 05:33:40 1994
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Why Make A Klingon Bible?
>From: [email protected]
>Date: Wed, 15 Jun 94 17:41:13 -0400
I'm a little behind the times (first day online since last wednesday), and
I know that others have responded to this before me; I'll probably wind up
responding to their responses, etc. But as one of the principals in all
this I should prbably talk myself as well.
>I'm on a Christian mailing list, and the people there are currently
>discussing the Klingon Bible Translation Project. Some take the view
>that, hey, everybody needs a hobby. Others say that this is disrespectful
>and a waste of time: there are lots of REAL languages that don't have a
>Bible translation yet.
Well, good to hear we have some publicity. Yes, everybody needs a hobby
(or twelve, as in my case). Wasteful? So is memorizing sports trivia or
playing solitaire; do the people discuss these problems too? After all,
they take up orders of magnitude more person-hours per year than anything
Klingon could possibly muster. Disrespectful? One could argue that
translating it in the first place was, but I won't. Most of the
translators, to my knowledge (and I'm Old Testament Editor), are not trying
to convert people, nor spread the word of God or any such thing. We are
students of linguistics, trying to apply a new piece of linguistic study to
an old and time-honored case. Does the fact that the language has the name
"Klingon" offend them? OK, call it a constructed language called uh...
"Hol'e'", which was invented as a linguistic puzzle. Would that make them
feel better? Or would they feel offended by the translations of the Bible
into Esperanto as well (there are other languages that need it...) or
similar efforts for Lojban? I am an Orthodox, practicing Jew myself, and
I've had to field this kind of argument now and then as well. I doubt
anyone out there is actually translating with the intent of converting
anyone to or from any religion. Could the existence of a Klingon
translation really affect someone that way? Do these people protest
colleges when they study the Bible as literature? Because what we're doing
is no worse: we're treating the Bible as a very well-known, famous piece of
literature whose translation into Klingon would (a) publicize the language
no small amount and (b) prove something about the ability of the Klingon
language to handle large and varied texts. If treating the Bible as
literature offends some, well, that's a separate argument. But if not,
then this shouldn't bother them any more than translating Shakespeare or
Suzanne Vega for that matter.
>Still more are saying that Klingon culture (as portrayed on Star Trek) is
>not very forgiving or loving, and that it's a mockery to translate the
>Bible into a language centered around war and killing and so on.
Well, there are languages of cultures centered around polygamy and other
things Christianity doesn't much hold in high regard; nonetheless I've seen
the Bible translated into just about every language one could think of. I
don't see that this argument holds water or is indeed relevant. Since when
do you decide "well, these people don't like tomatoes; I guess it would be
disrespectful to translate this book of pizza recipes into their language".
Maybe not useful, but not disrespectful (actually, it *would* be useful for
a tomato-hating scholar to study this strange culture that eats them). But
we never said we were tryin to convert Klingons.
>Others have said that some famous writings have been rendered in Klingon,
>noting the references to Shakespeare in STVI:TUC. The Bible is just a
>logical thing to translate.
That's about the view I take. It's a big, honking famous chunk of text,
and it would make a splash if we had it. Moreover, it would teach us no
small amount about how a language structured like Klingon would work to
express things, as well as teaching us (or at least the translators) more
about the original text as we puzzle over what it really means in an
attempt to break out the meaning and translate it.
>WELL, I figured I would ask if anybody here who has done work on this, and
>who has rendered parts of the Bible into Klingon, would like to send me a
>few words I can forward to the Christian mailing list. The primary
>concern seems to be that you are mocking something they consider important.
Well, you can forward what I write (gee, hope it doesn't sound too
vitriolic; it cerainly looks nastier than my usual style). Kevin Wilson
here ([email protected]), who has probably already responded, is
the general director for the Klingon Bible Translation Project, and I am
Editor for the Old Testament. Feel free to write to me privately if you
want to discuss this further and don't want to have the list in on it. Or
publically on the list, accordingly.
The purpose of the project is not to mock, but to study. Any translation
project is a study in the text being translated and the source and target
languages, simply by the nature of translation. We hope to gain some
better understanding of how to handle problems in Klingon by tackling one
of the most famous and oft-translated texts in history: the Bible.
>Can you reassure them that this is not the case, or maybe say why you feel
>it is worth doing? Does anyone have evangelistic goals in mind ("I became
>as a Trekkie to win the Trekkies")? Are there any passages which work
>better in Klingon than in English? Are there any ways in which the
>translation is easier to Klingon?
I don't think it even merits consideration that Trekkies will be more or
less likely to be converted depending on the existence of a Klingon Bible.
I mean, come on... "Gee, I guess I was wrong all along, this God stuff must
be worthwhile, even though I never believed it... but now there's a Klingon
version, so it must be right!"? Doesn't sound like sane mental processes
to me.
Well, all languages are different, and each one can handle certain aspects
of others in better or worse ways. I translate from the Hebrew directly,
since I have little faith in translations of translations. Klingon's
aspect structure is closer to Hebrew's tense system than can be said for
English... I suppose Klingon might be able to do a bit better preserving
some ambiguities Hebrew has with pronouns (where English has to distinguish
between "he" and "it", Hebrew has the same pronoun, and Klingon might be
using the same prefix), etc.... Hard to say in general, and specific
examples don't come to mind.
>Sadly, my fellow Christians are noted for getting a bit carried away with
>seeing modern culture as "out to get them", and they are also prone to
>running a bit wild with speculations about how there's an anti-Christian
>agenda in everything. Here is a chance to stop a potentially damaging
>set of rumors and accusations before it gets started.
Out to get them? Depends on your point of view. The Bible has already
become a very secularized commodity, being studied and critiqued from every
angle, not just religious ones. In that respect, this project isn't going
to help it gain much in being considered a special book to which normal
rules of scholarly study do not apply. But let's fae it, it's not about to
hurt it much in that regard either. If anything, it's significant that the
Bible was singled out as one of the first big translation projects.
Hope that makes sense...
>Mare See Bow Cups,
>Darren
>Darren F Provine / [email protected]
~mark