tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Feb 13 11:32:40 1995
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Re: mu'tlhegh Dun
- From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: mu'tlhegh Dun
- Date: Mon, 13 Feb 95 14:32:29 EST
- In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>; from "Alan Anderson" at Feb 13, 95 7:32 am
Please don't take the following critique as overly harsh. Your
chosen text is challenging. You have done well, though this
does need work.
According to Alan Anderson:
>
> I read a .signature last week that spoke to me. It challenged me
> to express it in the warrior's tongue. I have tried to be faithful
> to both the meaning and the tone of the original. I hope I have
> chosen words and syntax appropriately. I will post the original
> quote separately so you have a chance not to read it.
>
> yev'eghghach yotlhmeyDaq vIHbe''eghtaH SanIDpu'
> toghHa'lu'bogh chISchoHlI'bogh Hommey.
See the note below about your first two words. While still
disputed, I personally think {vIH} is already intransitive. I
think that if you wanted a transitive version, you would need
{vIHmoH}, so it seems inappropriate to add {-'egh}. "Move, be
in motion" fits the pattern of definition that Okrand describes
on pages 78-79. The word "move" is there to give you a word you
can find in the dictionary. The phrase "be in motion" tells you
what the word really means. In English, the word "move"
includes the meaning "be in motion", but it also includes the
meaning "cause X to be in motion", which I do not believe is
within the bounds of {vIH}. For that, you need {vIHmoH}, and
{vIH'eghmoH} seems redundent to simple {vIH}.
I also think that the cost to accuracy of losing
{chISchoHlI'bogh} would be more than paid for by the simplicity
of using {chIS} adjectivally.
yotlhDaq vIHbe'taH SanIDpu' law' Hommey chIS.
Even here, {SanIDpu' law'} is stretching established grammar,
since we have no examples of adjectivals used on numbers,
unless they are being used as nouns, which is not the case
here. It may be better to pick an arbitrarily huge number,
better fitting the example concerning how many throats can be
slit by a running man, and the statement that a Klingon may be
inaccurate, but he is never approximate, as given on one of the
audio tapes.
> yay tlhaprupDI' leSmeH ba'choHpu' SanIDpu' 'ej leSvIS...
> Hegpu' chaH.
{-vIS} requires {-taH}, and {-pu'} is a mistake here. You don't
want the perfective. You just want simple past. You do not want
to say, "While they rested, they had died." You want to say,
"While they rested, they died." The dying occurred while
resting. It was not already completed in the time setting of
"while resting". Similarly, they did not complete the beginning
of the sitting as soon as they were ready to take victory.
Again, you want simple past, which is not the same thing as
perfective.
> Here's the original that inspired me:
> =======
> On the plains of hesitation lie the bleaching bones of
> countless thousands who, on the dawn of victory, sat down to
> rest and resting -- died.
This is a challenge indeed. First, you would probably be better
off ignoring a term like "plains of hesitation". Nobody will
understand it. It is symbolic in a way that I doubt can be
conveyed without a cultural reference into Klingon. In
particular, I think your effort failed. I don't know ANYBODY
who would figure it out just from seeing your Klingon version,
and I don't think I could do better.
"Countless thousands" similarly should be recognized as an
idiom and become replaced by {SanID law'}.
> -- unknown
> =======
> -- ghunchu'wI'
>
>
--
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