tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Jun 17 00:26:42 1995
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Re: Beowulf
yipiv YoDtargh
The Beowulf poet had it easy, he was anonymous! I, on the other hand,
am responsible for what I write.
>
> On Thu, 15 Jun 1995, Andrew wrote:
>
> > toH! jaj tIQ HoS qumwI'pu' la'mey *Dene-mo' DIQoypu', toDuj luqeqbogh
> > joHpu'vetlh tIgh'e'.
>
> "We really hear them because of *Dene of the commanders scattered about of
> the governors of power of the ancient day, the custom of those lords
> which practice bravery."
>
va! My mistake. For "la'mey" read "la'pu'", I have used the wrong
plural here, there is nothing in the original to imply the commanders
are scattered all about. La'pu' is used to translate princes
(athelingas), later on I use la'quv to gloss king. Modern tlhingan Hol
appears to egalitarian enough that if you can seize and hold power it's
yours, no matter chuQunlij. La' and la'quv seemed to me to be better
analogies than qumwi' and ta'/voDleH, which implies to me a role on a
planetary scale whereas here the Dene (Danish people) are no more than a
tribe.
Qu'vatlh! qumwi'pu' should have been deleted! It was my original
attempt to translate princes which I then replaced with la'pu'.
toH! is used to translate hwat (rhymes with hat not modern English
what), a poetic old english word meaning lo! indeed!
jaj tIQ is meant to understood adverbially, as in appendix 6.7: in
ancient days, or, in days of yore.
tIgh'e' was used to translate "how" used as a relative adverb.
> > pIj qaS jaghpu'vo' quSmey HIq nge' *SIlDe Seyving, qaS Sungpu'vo';
>
> "It often occurs; *SIlDe SeyvIng takes away the liquor of the chairs from
> the enemies, from the natives it happens."
>
You have caught another error, for qaS read QaS troops. I am worse at
this than I expected.
quSmey HIq is a gloss of mead-benches, an important concept. The
great hall was filled with benches where warriors sat to join in the
beerfeasts and received treasure from their lord. Basically what is
implied here is that the quSmey HIq became the spoils of conquest. I
have seen nothing that implies that Klingons have similar concepts from
what I have seen, but I imagine the concept would be meaningful within
their culture.
> > *'erol HajmoH, wa'logh pagh ghajbogh lutu'lu'DI';
>
> "It made *'erol dread; once when one finds (_) has nothing"
>
The missing subject is SIlDe Seyving, or Scyld Scefing "Shield, with
the sheaf/son of Sheaf", a mythical figure like King Arthur or Kahless
who came from over the sea as an unknown child and grew up to rule the
Danes. To the original audience this was common knowledge, but not to
modern readers. The second half of the sentence should read "once when
(after) he was found possessing nothing. The British royal family can
be traced back to Scyld (along with Noah, Adam and Woden, ha!)
The 'erol is uncertain. The original (Eorl) could be declined to mean
eorlas, the nobles, or Eorle, a Danish tribe subdued during this
period, mentioned in Latin writings as the Heruli.
> > vaj pop noblu':
>
> "in that case a reward is given"
>
The original reads "for this he was given comfort". The above is my
closest translation.
> > logh bIng qanmoH, batlhvaD chep, lobnISpa' Hoch ba'wI'pu' pa' bIQ'a' Hur,
> > ghaHDaq van lunob: la'quv QaQ loDvetlh!
>
> "It causes the area under the space to be old, it prospers for the honor,
> before the ones who sit of all need to obey, outside the ocean
> thereabouts, they give a salute on him/her: that man of the good supreme
> commander."
>
It should read "he grew under heaven, prospered in honour, until all
the neigbouring people over the ocean had to obey him, they gave him
tribute: that was a good king!
The first phrase is the closest approximation for concepts that have
not yet been recorded. Possibly "qo'Daq qanmoH" would be an accurate
reading, if not a literal one. The second phrase should have been
"batlh chep" as honour here is best understood adverbially.
Actually the subject of the third phrase would read better as Hoch
ba'wi'mey bIQ'a', the original literally means "each of those who
sit/dwell about over the whale-road".
A pity about that last phrase, the sentiment is so wonderfully
Klingon.
> I'll stop here. The next sentence definitely has some misplaced syntactic
> markers. I'm afraid that either something must have gotten lost in
> translation or we need to work on your grammar; I'm finding this to be
> incomprehensible. I suspect there are some serious word order and syntax
> problems here. Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of the original to
> compare to in order to find out what this is supposed to say.
>
> I think it is a worthwhile project to translate this epic into Klingon.
> I think this story is one that Klingons would relate to and enjoy. I
> suggest you write the (modern) English translation along with this and
> then we'll see how this can be translated in Klingon.
>
> > vaj bo'DIjDaq Qup'e' bogh
> > puqloD loDvetlhvaD, popvaD ngeHpu'bogh joH'a', Seng'a'mo' legh, wa'logh
> > poH nI'vaD la'quv ghajbe'bogh SIQ; ghaHvaD quv qo' nob joh'a' yIn,
> > che'wI' batlh; noy *beyo - noyqu' batlh puq SIlDe, *SeDen-Daq. Vaj
> > QaQnISmoH loD Qup, nobmey mIp'e', QorghtaHvis vav, poH ghoSDI' veS QaH
> > juppu'vam QaQqu', qumwi'chaj toy'jaj 'e'; chepnIS loD Qapmeyvo'.
> >
Then was born to that one a son young in the courts, whom God(joH'a')
had sent to that people for a comfort(popvaD), saw because of great
distress, once they had endured that they had not had a king (la'quv)
for a long time; the lord of life, ruler of glory(batlh) gave worldly
glory (quv qo'); Beow (beyo) was famous - the honour of Scyld's son was
widely known, in Sceden-land (SeDen). So needs a young man to make
good, with rich gifts, while a father still cares for (_), in time those
willing (QaQqu') friends will help when war comes, that they may serve
their governor; by deeds must a man prosper.
jiQagh, puS. Strict adherence to punctuation and confusion of
dependant clauses make this hard to read. Also I have followed the
poet's practice of using subject pronouns very sparingly in this
passage, while this makes sense in some languages it doesn't in English,
which I expect is the first language of most people reading this.
The first phrase is badly ordered. vaj bo'DijDaq Qup 'e' loDvetlhvaD
puqloD bogh,
The second is missing some words/morphemes. popvaD ghomvetlhDaq
ngeHpu'bogh joH'a',
the fourth might read better as "wa'logh la'quv ghajbe'takhvis"
without any temporal adverbs. The audience knows already that before
Scyld came the Danes had driven their last king into exile and were
going through a period of privation without a strong leader, but we do
not know that.
joH'a' is God as in the Klingon Bible. The time of writing is
uncertain, but it is agreed to be after the English converted to
Christianity, the people of the poem are "noble pagans", before this
period.
Sceden-land is Skane in modern Sweden, but at this stage ruled by the
Danes.
Juppu'vam QaQqu' might read better as Sap'a'pu', great volunteers.
Qapmeyvo' should definately read Qapla'meyvo', successes.
> > Wes hal! yIpIv!
> > Andrew.
>
> This phrase I understand. Wassail! yIpIv je.
>
Several languages use a similar prhrase as a greeting, such as NZ
Maori "Kia ora", may you be healthy. Echoes still survive in hello. As
a polite form of greeting I prefere it over the choices given to us. I
find it hard to believe that Klingons do not engage in small talk. The
homeworld must not have temperate zones on the surface, so they never
complain or praise the weather. Many people in this country would
probably die in silence if they did not have that conversation starter.
> yoDtargh
>
yIpIv, 'anreyaS-vo'
--
Life is short, [email protected]
...so am I.