tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Aug 09 11:04:57 1996
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Re: KLBC: Bible translation
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>Date: Fri, 9 Aug 1996 05:57:38 -0700
>From: "Donald E. Vick" <[email protected]>
>pabpo'pu'vaD SaghItlhneS:
Since you have "-vaD" flagging the word "pabpo'pu'", it is no longer the
object of the verb. Generally, nouns with type-5 suffixes other than
"-'e'" are neither subjects nor objects. In this case, I suppose it's the
"indirect object." So it should be "pabpo'pu'vaD jIghItlhneS." (or
possibly "pabpo'pu', SaghItlhneS"/"I write you, O Grammarians", along the
lines of "qaja'" for "I tell you" as opposed to "I say you.")
> tlhIngan Hol wIHaD jIH vavwI' je
Weird. This is completely right. But something in my head was so used to
"vavwI' jIH je" that it threw me. I don't know why we've been doing it the
other way mostly; perhaps from English "My father and I"... in which case,
throwing things the non-English way to keep us on our toes is definitely
good! :)
> loQ tlhIngan Hol wIghojmo', vay' wImugh wIneH
> wItaghDI', *yo'a'neS* paq wIlo'
> wImughbogh yInuDneS
"wImughbogh" doesn't mean anything to me. It's true that you can drop
pronouns which are implied by the verb-prefixes, but I think that if
something is important enough to be modified by a relative clause (i.e. if
it's the head-noun of a relative clause), it's important enough to say.
Otherwise it looks like you're eliding the thing you're talking about!
Give me a head-noun, something. ghItlh wImughta'bogh... something like
that.
>The English is my own "Klingon-friendly" translation from the Greek.
Oooh, goodie. From the Greek. Translations from translations always leave
me nervous. I work from the Hebrew; I know Nick works from Greek as well.
>John 1
>{1} When it began, the word was, and the word was in the place
>near God, and the word was identical to God.
>taghDI' mu' tu'lu'taH
The "it" of "when it began"/taghDI' is going to be troublesome in that it's
elided later on. Here it's not too bad, just confusing. You'll see.
You don't need the -taH, but I'm not sure you want to drop it.
>'ej joH'a' retlhDaq
Here you have a problem. You're missing a verb. "And near God..." Near
God what?? "joH'a' retlhDaq tu'lu'" perhaps, or "joH'a' retlhDaq 'oHtaH."
Better still (and it will be even better in later verses), consider "tlhej"
>'ej joH'a' nIbtaH mu'
Interesting. I prefer this to pronoun-as-verb. This statement is too
important and non-obvious to trust to that.
>{2} He was with God when it began.
>joH'a'Daq ghaH tu'lu'taH taghDI'
This sounds like "He was in God when he started"... not sure if it's when
"he" (whoever he is) started or when God started, but those seem to be the
obvious subjects for "tagh." This is what I mean by getting troublesome.
When the subject is elided, you look for nearby things that make sense
there. You have two candidates in this sentence which make perfect
sense... and are wrong. You're going to need something like "taghDI' 'u'",
even though that's adding something to the text.
"tlhej" here will work better than "joH'a'Daq ghaH" (you don't need the
tu'lu', see Section 6.3).
>{3} Through him everything was made; if he made it not, never was
>anything made.
>ghaHmo' Hoch chenchoHmoHlu'ta'
The -choH may be superfluous here, and probably is in the next sentence.
Nice use of -mo' to add indirection.
>'oH chenchoHmoHbe'chugh ghaH not vay' chenchoHmoHlu'ta'
I might expect "'oH" and "vay'" to change places, so the pronoun refers to
an already-mentioned antecedent, but this isn't necessary (years ago I
remember Guido#1 and I going head to head on this; pronouns very frequently
precede their antecedents). Something about this sentence still looks
funny, though, but I think that's also in the English/Greek.
>{4} Life was found in him, and for men the life acted as light.
>ghaHDaq yIn tu'lu'ta'
>'ej yoqpu' wovwI' Da' yIn
Do you want -ta' there? Was life found in him on purpose? Moreover, do
you mean "Life had been found in him (and maybe isn't anymore)"? You don't
seem prone to using -pu' and -ta' everywhere for English past tense, so I
can't assume that's what you're doing, but from the English anyway I'd
think an unmarked verb would be better.
Hee, I like "yoq" here. "Da" has no glottal stop. You want "yoqpu'vaD",
don't you? For their benefit? Better might be "'ej yoqpu'vaD wov yIn":
life shone-as-light for the humanoids. Maybe too poetic.
>{5} The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not
>[understood | overcome] it.
>HurghwI'Daq boch yIn
>'ach 'oH [yajbe' | jeybe'] HurghwI'
Hrm. I can wish for a better suffix here than -wI', but I don't trust
- -ghach. Same with above. "wovwI'" sounds to me like "a thing that's
bright" and makes me think of light bulbs and embers. "HurghwI'" similarly
means "thing that's dark" and makes me think of windowless unlit rooms and
possibly even objects with dark coloring. Both sound off to me for
abstract "light" and "darkness." -ghach would probably do, and there might
even be justification in this case for using -taHghach, but I try to avoid
that as a cop-out. It's an Esperantism to throw -taH on any old verb
regardless of semantics in order to make it susceptible to -ghach. I don't
have a real suggestion here just yet, but these are things to consider.
We've been wondering about "boch" vs. "wov" (vs. "wew") for a while.
Generally most of the opinions I've heard consider "boch" to mean shiny by
reflection, like polished silver, while "wov" means shining by its own
light, like stars and light bulbs. (It's interesting that maSwov/moonlight
uses "wov" and something which shines by reflection, but the moon's light
to a planet-bound observer doesn't seem like reflection, and certainly
doesn't seem specular. The word is a noun-verb compound, or uses a noun
"wov" we don't have a record of, so it may be an old usage).
>{6} From the place near God, a man was sent; he was named John.
>joH'a' retlhDaqvo' yoq ngeHlu'
>*yo'a'neS* pong ghaH
"retlh" means "area beside." "retlhDaq" means "in the area beside", as a
noun plus a noun suffix. Since you have -Daq as a type-5 suffix, you can't
add *another* type-5 suffix -vo'. (You might say you're using the noun
"Daq" and making a compound noun, but that would be redundant. From the
place of a place near?) joH'a' retlhvo' would work.
The correct use of "pong" has been argued up and down here. The latest
evidence is that you can say "ghaHvaD *yo'a'neS* ponglu'", according to
some SkyBox cards. I'm pretty sure what you have here doesn't work too
well. It sounds like "he named yo'a'neS"... named yo'a'neS what? You need
he WAS named.
FWIW, most of the time we avoid the problem and say "*yo'a'neS* 'oH
pongDaj'e'."
An interesting start!
~mark
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.6.2
Comment: Processed by Mailcrypt 3.4, an Emacs/PGP interface
iQB1AwUBMgt9ucppGeTJXWZ9AQEPhAL/bmadqa80iD0ZbLxc1SUMNdzPjDlLGDEY
rN/ynh9UlMlgA/0ll76UHp0JNqa14GR6ox9911Hd98y27vaYdTJNXuVkHr4aMZS8
hINPB+SVaVK9lA/80yZOigoEZIyZKMss
=i4A9
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----