tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Apr 18 06:52:37 1995

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Re: KBTP: "Tetragrammaton"

>Date: Mon, 17 Apr 1995 14:20:10 -0400
>Originator: [email protected]
>From: Alan Anderson                        <[email protected]>

>chay' *'aDo'nay per mugh KBTP?

>I'm curious.  I know that the Klingon Bible Translation Project is working
>from the original Hebrew/Aramaic of the Pentateuch. (*)  There are many
>"names" used when the text refers to the Almighty, and I'd like to know
>how the Project is translating them.  I expect that most persons' names
>would be phonetically transliterated, like {*mIryam} or {*'avra'am}, with
>complications for the non-Klingon sounds in {*yoSe[F]} or {*e[z]ra']}.
>What I'm really curious about, though, is the Tetragrammaton. (*)

>Is it being translated "phonetically" as {*'aDo'nay} or something close?
>Is it being (mis)translated phonetically as approximately "Jehovah"?
>Is it being "copied" letter-for-letter as {*yHvH}?  (I'd prefer this.)
>Is something else being done?

I suppose I should try to speak to this, being Hebrew Scriptures Editor for
the KBTP.

Yes, I (at least) work from the Hebrew or Aramaic in the Hebre Bible (not
just the Pentateuch), and since I'm the editor I'll presumably be checking
the work of anyone else who doesn't have familiarity with those languages.

Personal names are being transliterated, generally without introducing
letters/sounds which are not in Klingon.  We (at least I) also try to make
the transliterations not break Klingon phonology rules (no syllable-initial
consonant clusters, or syllable-final ones other than -rgh, -y' or -w',
etc).  This can sometimes lead to pretty far-flung transliterations, but on
the whole they're *FAR* better than the mangling that's been done to Hebrew
names on their long journey into English.

God's name is a tricky one.  People just aren't used to seeing YHVH given
as a name in mid-text, in pretty much any language (except in Hebrew, where
we automatically read it as 'adonay, in some cases 'elohim, and hashem in
informal speech).  In what likely was a bad move from a scholarly
perspective, God's name in the history of Bible study and translation has
been replaced by a common noun which then takes on sort of the status of a
proper noun... and that's what people come to expect.  So in English we
have "God" and "the Lord", in Hebrew "'adonay" and "'elohim" and "hashem",
etc.

The KBTP has tentatively been using a method I'm afraid I'm responsible
for, perpetuating this system (since, after all, it's what people would
expect to see).  We've been using "joH'a'" for God's name in most
positions, though early on we were saying we could always do a global
replace operation (with a little careful oversight) if/when we decided
something else was better.

As I said, it may be that common nouns were not a good move, but they are
the accepted standard, and the KBTP doesn't really have reforming the
Bible-translation tradition as one of its goals.

~mark

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