tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Aug 03 19:10:01 2003

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Re: grief and scorn



qon naHQun:
>Alright, I'm trying to translate a song;
>and I've got most of it down except for this line:
>
><Weigh'd down by grief and scorn>

Two relevant issues to heed here:

1) As you know, a literal translation is not warranted because we don't know
if the metaphor of weight is interpreted the same way by Klingons. So, try
for a metaphor that is either Klingonesque or more universal. In this case I
suggest the latter, since we have little knowledge of the Klingon
subconscious equivalent for "weight".

2) A grammatically parallel translation is not warranted. You don't
necessarily need Klingon words with exactly the same glosses as these
English words.

That said, there are a lot of words that you should become aware of:

Grief: 'It, Sot, 'oy'
Scorn: pum, pIch, qun

Then you would try to capture the essence of the idea in a way made succinct
by Klingon grammar:

'oy' 'ugh, pIch je qengnIS

Or something like that. (This has the same number of syllables at least.)
Just some suggestions. Have fun.

--
Andrew Strader



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