tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Oct 11 21:50:29 1998
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Re: DS9: "Shadows and Symbols"
>Anyone here have any idea on what that Klingon would translate to?
>
>Katie
Well, that's the 64,000 darsek question, isn't it? Bits of it do seem to
match what's happening in the story (SuvwI'vam, lom, 'el, yInmaj, batlh,
batlhmaj, 'Iwmaj, etc.), but none of it fits together. I played around with
it for a while, but decided not to post the results so as not to spoil the
puzzle for others.
Clearly the writers had lines they wanted to translate but - as usual - they
didn't bother to actually study TKD and learn the grammar. When they're not
just making it all up, they only look up words in the glossaries and plug
them into the English word order... that is, if they're lucky enough to find
the words in the first place. Not that it's easy to tell, what with the
peculiar "phonetic" transcription they use, which is presumably thought to be
"easier" for the actors (i.e. Michael Dorn) to deal with than Okrand's own
transcription.
As to what it all means... why don't you have a shot yourself? I'd suggest
reciting the lines out loud yourself - don't rely on Dorn's pronunciation,
which differs in places from the captions - and re-transcribing them in
Okrand's system to start, then reading the words in the *English* order and
syntax. If this proves productive, we can then re-translate the result into
proper ta' Hol.
Unless this was an ancient no' Hol chant/prayer to begin with... which does
seem likely, considering the topic.
--
Voragh "Grammatici certant et adhuc sub judice
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons lis est." Horace (Ars Poetica)