tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Aug 07 16:17:28 1997
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Re: KLBC: AAF continued
- From: "Robyn Stewart" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: KLBC: AAF continued
- Date: Thu, 7 Aug 1997 16:16:04 PST
- Organization: NLK Consultants, Inc.
- Priority: normal
cha'wIgh has been translating his country's national anthem
He is greatly frustrated by the repeated answer "learn to write good
simple Klingon before you try to translate song or poetry." In fact
he is so frustrated that he is beginning to abuse list members.
cha'wIgh, your translation attempts are above average for a
newcomer to the language, but the task you have set yourself is too
frustrating. You're trying to learn to swim by swimming the English
Channel, and demanding that we act as your lifeguards. The BG is
telling you he is willing to help, but that you have to swim laps in
a pool first.
The problem is that translation is twice as hard as original thought,
and translation of archaic, symbolic or poetic language at least
twice as hard again. Believe me, I'm *supposed* to be doing a
translation project (hi, Lawrence!) but it is so frustratingly
difficult that I am writing kilobytes of Bemorian stories instead.
It is easier for me to write an entire "Qov you have to be nuts,
that's not KLBC" episode of the Bemorian saga than it is for me to
translate ten lines of jInmolqoqwIj.
You're trying to do a four-step process. Take:
> We've golden soil and wealth for toil
First you have to figure out what this actually means. I mean really.
Do you have gold coloured dirt? Somewhat yellow dirt? Actual gold
flakes in your soil? Lands rich in precious metals? Extremely
fertile soil? Just a generally happy cast of wealth to your lands? A
combination of most of the above? Are the golden soil and wealth both
available in exchange for toil, or is the golden soil one thing and
the wealth another? It does matter if you want to translate it,
because the ambiguites don't fall in the same places in Klingon. It's
a beautifully wrought phrase in the English. It evokes so much. Step
one is deciding what meaning is actually there.
Then you have to decide what meaning to translate. You are going to
have to abandon some meanings. It hurts. That's why my project is
so neglected. How can you throw away part of the text you treasure?
You may be able to pick up some of the shades of meaning somewhere
else.
Thirdly you have to actually translate. This involves finding the
right vocabular and the right grammar and totally rearranging the
word order and even coming at some of the thoughts from a different
angle. We call it recasting. For a beginner just finding matching
vocabulary is a challenge.
And fourthly, you're translating poetry, you then have to take the
Klingon prose and make it poetic. We don't even know
how to DO this. We can hypothesize, but when we do (and I speak from
personal experience) half the people who read it go "huh?" and almost
the entire other half shriek "You can't do that!" In your case you
want to preserve or replace some of the imagery, make it fit the
meter of the song, and make it rhyme.
Why don't you make translating the song your long term project, but
in the short term, write some original sentences about your country,
based on the song, and things you are proud of your country about.
AustraliaDaq bIvumchugh bImIpchoHlaH.
naDev baSmey qub tlhIllu'.
'IH puHmaj.
Eventually, when you can use the various tools of Klingon well, you
might put your beginning sentences together into a Klingon version of
the song. My country is bilingual and our national anthem has an
official version in each language. The meanings are almost
completely divergent.
- Solbe'lI'bogh Qov