tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed May 10 09:25:31 1995
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Re: what (question)
On Wed, 10 May 1995, Jim Boniface wrote:
> Is there a way in klingon to use the word "what" not so much as a
> question? I'm asking because for some reason I started to translate the
> song "mother" by Danzig, and in the song it says
> Tell your childer not to hear my words
> what they mean
> what they say
> but I couldn't figure out how to translate the "what they mean" or "what
> they say"
Gosh, this class of posting is really getting old, so *I'm* gonna say
something...
Klingon is not Coded English. There is no 1-1 correspondence. Too often
we get requests like this, where it is apparent that this point is
completely lost on the requestor.... that the FIRST 74 PAGES OF TKD ARE
MORE IMPORTANT THAN WHAT FOLLOWS!
And actually, translation into *any* language is not a 1-1 thing. I
guess if Marc Okrand had just come up with some Pig Klingon scheme:
IjIH ambIH a ingonklIH oldiersIH.. ouyIH illwIH iedIH
some people would go away and "translate" any ol' thing they wanted to....
But, there is a need to be obhelpful.... Let's try translating the thing
into Klingon-style English... This is called "recasting"....
> Tell your childer not to hear my words
> what they mean
> what they say
You tell your children:
Don't listen to my words;
They possess nothing. (i.e. they mean nothing)
They say nothing.
Child-ren-your (you(sg,imp)-them)-tell:
Word-s-my-vaD (you(pl,imp)-them)-listen-not.
pagh (they)-have word-s-my.
pagh (they)-say word-s-my.
Now *you* should be able to finish from here.....