tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Jan 22 11:03:21 1998
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Re: Poetry
- From: "Eduardo Fonseca" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Poetry
- Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 16:40:30 -0200
ghItlh Alan Anderson:
>> It's really unfortunatly, because it's impossible (for me)
>>to translate the exatly meaning of the poetry in english
>>due the idomatic expressions. I can write the meaning of
>>the words, but not the feeling.
>
>Thus we see the common admonition against trying to translate poetry.
>If you can't get past the idioms, your attempts will fail, and fail
>badly. Trying to translate things other than poetry will also fail,
>but not usually with quite as much spectacle. Poetry brings out the >problems much more emphatically, since so much of it is based on
>evoking imagery beyond the literal meaning of the words.
The main problem is the subjectiveness of the implicity
words. As KGT "ngaQ lojmIt" (The door is locked), without a
previuous explanation, will mean nothing for me or my country
people than the literal meaning. The same way, the number
24 or a stag (Cervus) will mean nothing for you, but here it
has a different conotation. It refers to the homossexuality.
>This is not unique to Klingon, by the way. The problem occurs witn
>translations between most languages, natural or otherwise.
Sure. The more "intimity" you have with the language, the
more you know how it works. But if I stop in the first obstacle
I'll never walk by myself.
__
Eduardo Fonseca || Belo Horizonte, Brasil
Pau Brasil: The brazilian's VGA Planets home page
http://www.geocities.com/BourbonStreet/2460
Hovmey DIvan