tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Aug 18 02:04:15 2003

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Re: tlhIngan Hol Google

Tad Stauffer ([email protected]) [KLI Member] [Hol po'wI']

At 11:58 PM 8/17/2003 -0400, Spencer Daniel wrote:
>Okay, so you know how you can set Google to be in Klingon?  Well, they use 
>the -wI' suffix a lot, but I was wondering if it should really be -ghach.
>it seems like they want a nominalizer for things like "a search" (so it 
>would be nejghach and not nejwI').  the "nagh beQ" translation of "images" 
>is a creative one.

Since this was marked KLBC, I'll let the Beginner's Grammarian comment on 
the grammaticality of {nejghach} if he wants.

As for the actual choice of words for translation, I did most of Google's 
Klingon translation, so I'll give a few of my thoughts (from what I 
remember about it when I was working on it):

In translating "Search", I tried to use a verb phrase when appropriate 
(such as {nejmeH...} "In order to search" or {yInej} "Search!". On the main 
page, it looks like I used {nejwI' Qatlh} for "Advanced Search". I believe 
I was thinking along the lines of "Complex Searcher/Complex Probe". That 
is, it indicates that the tool being used is a complex searcher, rather 
than indicating that the search process itself is complex. If I had to 
avoid using {nejwI'}, I might use {nejmeH mIw} "Process for searching" to 
describe how Google's website actually searches. If you wanted to say 
"Please wait for the search...", I might use {nejlI'ghach yISIQ} "Endure 
the search-in-progress".

For "images", I decided to take the easy way out and use {bagh neQ}, which 
I believe KGT described as something like a painted stone mural. The way 
that Google presents its image search as thumbnails, you can think of these 
images as a whole bunch of very flat (2 dimensional even!) painted rocks on 
your screen. :-)

After looking at the Google Klingon translation page again, it looks like 
some non-Klingon translations have been entered on the Klingon page for 
more recent phrases. (I haven't been keeping up with the Google Klingon 
Translation page otherwise, so if anyone wants to correct any of it, feel 
free to sign up there)

- taD

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