tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Jan 02 19:57:33 1998
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Re: KLBC: Trying to translate qIDHom
- From: Qov <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: KLBC: Trying to translate qIDHom
- Date: Fri, 02 Jan 1998 19:57:07 -0800
At 19:36 98-01-02 -0800, Qermaq wrote:
}peqaw - chaq qabqu' Qermaq qIDmey, 'ach qaybe'!
}
}ghItlh Qov:
}
}<veng wa'DIchDaq ghaHtaH> alone is "He is in the First City". To say "The
}warrior is in the First City", we need to add <SuvwI''e'> because the
}pronoun <ghaH> acts as a verb, right? (I find no canon to explicitly support
}it or forbid it, but it seems consistent with other 6.3. usage.) So in this
}case I believe I added <-'e'> correctly. No emphasis on <SuvwI'> intended or
}implied.
bIlugh. jIQonglaw'.
}DaH maQoch, Qov. The pun is that SuD can mean "They are green" and also
}"They take chances". <Doq'a' SuvwI'? ghobe', SuD!>
But the other half of the pun is missing. This joke started to be funny
about the tenth time I heard it. Now it's hysterical.
}is as funny to me as "Do
}nylons walk away by themselves? No, they run." (The non-native English
}speakers are perhaps now scratching their heads - much as we all did upon
}first hearing the Klingon joke.)
I suppose if it became a tradition to tell this joke repeatedly as if it was
actually funny, it might start to be.
}(Qov is probably scratching her head, too,
} but for a different reason...)
ghewmey.
}Not to say the English equivalent is a real knee-slapper, but the point is
}some jokes translate, some don't. My Klingon joke is meaningless in English.
I think it has a sort of surreal humour. I think I'll tell it at the next
party I attend, then shrug and explain that it must have lost something in
translation.
Qov [email protected]
Beginners' Grammarian