tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Aug 08 08:49:08 1996
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Klingon-American :(
- From: Niall Hosking <[email protected]>
- Subject: Klingon-American :(
- Date: Thu, 8 Aug 1996 16:48:55 +0100 (BST)
I just wanted to comment on the appearance that Klingon as currently
spoken is being translated into *American* English...there are places
where *British* English would probably make changes (to the *English*
words...)
I noticed a while ago that American usage showed in the presence of
these two words from TKD:
veng city
vengHom village
Now, normally one has three graduations of settlement size..village,
town, city. So far as i can tell, Americans don't have towns...they seem
to call everything a 'city', even what we British would call a 'town'
(like some of the smaller 'cities' in the States). Given the existence
of {vengHom} for 'village', it is logical that a large 'city' would be
{*veng'a'}. Given this presumption, a TKD translated into *British*
English would have the entries:
veng town
vengHom village
veng'a' city
If you wanted to refer to a *large* city (London, as opposed to say
Glasgow), you would then say {veng'a' tIn}. This leaves {veng} for the
smaller American 'cities' (like say Athens or Little Rock) and keeps
{veng'a'} for the bigger ones (Atlanta?), and {veng'a' tIn} would be the
real large ones like San Francisco, LA, Denver, New York....
My second linguistic quibble is with the translation of {qa'vIn}.
Quoting HolQeD v4 n2 p7, it says "Okrand acknowledges that it is unclear
whether this obvious cognate refers to the beverage itself, or to the
prominence of 'caffeine' in the brew, or perhaps both at once."
Given this stated uncertainty, it is clear that just using {qa'vIn} as a
translation for 'coffee' is both partially incorrect (as a case could be
made that {qa'vIn} refers to any caffeinated drink), it also reflects
the apparent American attitude that coffee=caffeine. As a native British
person, although I enjoy the occasional drink of coffee, I much prefer
to get my caffeine in other forms...mostly tea but also Coke/Pepsi, and
the Scots drink Irn-Bru (which makes Jolt cola look like water... :) So,
what I would propose, given the evidence of the article giving the word,
is that {qa'vIn} most accurately means 'caffeinated drink', with the
possible meaning of coffee (would there then be a word {*qav'I'}
[similar to John M. Ford's *kaffei] that would describe coffee itself?)
Has anyone else spotted any other Klingon words where the translation to
English shows an American linguistic bias?
(I'm not trying to particularly get at American cultural presumptions,
just to draw attention to the fact that other people on this planet
would probably translate Klingon differently [read flexibly :) ])
qSeroHs {Scot}'e'
--
Niall Hosking
aka Kserokhs Vaene
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
http://www.gla.ac.uk/Clubs/WebSoc/~884744ho
'Practise random kindness and senseless acts of beauty.'