tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jun 20 08:23:56 1994
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Father's Day Messages
>From: [email protected]
>Date: Mon, 20 Jun 94 02:19:50 -0400
>I offered this:
> batlh puqpu'Daj qeqta' vavlI' 'e' puqpu'chaj qeqjaj puqpu'lI'
>without a translation. I intended something along these lines:
> May your children raise their children as honorably
> as your father raised his.
>Possibly replacing `... his.' with `... you.' (Thus changing the Klingon
>to "batlh SoH Duqeqta' vavlI'...")
>That's what we call a "dynamic equivalence" translation, but it was as
>close as I could get. (Breaking down the `you' version more literally:
> with honor you he/you-train-ed father-your
> that
> child-ren-their train-may child-ren-your
>I *think*.)
(hey look, cataphora! Sorry, inside reference)
Well, the comment that "'e'" is the wrong word is valid. It's a
topicalizer. In the word-by-word translation, it sounds more like you mean
"so that", in which case you should use "-meH". But that's not what you
say you want.
>d'Armond Speers rendered it thusly:
>"With honor, your father prepared his children so that your children
>may prepare their children."
>apparently reading `that' as intending "so that". I had intended it
>to mean "the previous sentence", as in "May your children train their
>children as described in the previous sentence".
Aha. Well, think about it it. "'e'" is a pronoun, used only as the object
of a verb, right? Well, what's it the object of? The only verb in the
second sentence is "train", and that already has an object. Are you trying
to use it adverbially (some nouns can be used adverbially, like "wa'Hu'")?
That's an awfully big stretch. If you mean "resembling that which was
described", you'd better find a way to say so.
>He also noted that the word rendered `may' refers to a wish, and it would
>work better with `can'. For his translation, I agree about his tuning.
>However, my initial goal was the "May your children train their children as
>your father trained you" notion. Can an Official Grammarian tell me how
>close I got and what I should have said differently?
Hrm. It is *NOT* an easy sentence, not by a long shot. It begs for the
infamous "sentence-as-subject" construction, which Klingon doesn't have
(i.e. I wanted to say "may your children's training of their children
resemble your father's training of his children"). We have assorted tricks
and whozits around that, but they're likely to spoil the symmetry of the
sentence. Let's see...
Before you ask, yes, I'm avoiding nominalization with "-ghach".
Maybe... puqpu'Daj qeqta' vavlI' 'e' rurjaj wanI', puqpu'chaj qeqDI'
puqpu'lI'. (possibly with the "-DI'" clause in front). "May the event [of
training--possibly replace wanI' with qeq (the noun)] resemble your
father's training of his children, when you train your children." Erk, the
cataphora is a bit much even for me. I think the "-DI'" clause needs to be
in front. But then... hrm, this isn't pretty.
A side point: I think "qeq" is the wrong verb. It's given as meaning
"practice, train, prepare (v)". Now, my reading of this implies that it's
probably intransitive (after all, the object of the transitive form of the
English "train" is the person being trained, while for "practice" it's the
skill). Similarly, the noun-form of it looks more closely related to
practicing/training/preparing intransitively than teaching someone a skill.
Anyway. I'm a little short of time; I'll try to come up with a better
translation for you soon.
>And is "Suvbe'wI'" a reasonable attempt at "pacifist"?
Reasonable. I'd prefer "SuvQo'wI'". "Suvbe'wI'" sounds more like
"non-combatant." A pacifist is one who *refuses* to fight, one who is
against the idea in general, not just someone who happens not to be
fighting.
>Darren F Provine / [email protected]
~mark