tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Mar 12 20:40:30 2003
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Re: Tao Te Ching Chp. 25
ja' 'ISqu':
>What I'd really like to get would translate into English as
>
> "So silent, so void"
> (Chin. ji xi liao xi - silent/oh!/empty/oh!)
"Oh!" and "so" are pretty versatile, making them great weapons in the hand
of a poet. Unfortunately, they don't translate into crisp Klingon without
losing the range of meanings that they carry in English.
Our toolbox lacks the easy implication of surprise/awe/despair/etc. that
the English word "so" can evoke. For surprise, try {toH}. For despair,
{va}. I don't know how to use Klingon to call forth the nearly spiritual
sense of wonder that something like "so beautiful!" can mean, unless I do
it explicitly and thus risk shattering a crystalline idea with a hammer.
>Perhaps that effect could be achieved by adding either {-chu'}
>
> tamchu', chImchu'.
> (perfectly silent, perfectly empty)
>
>or the emphatic {-qu'}.
>
> tamqu', chImqu'.
>
>I'm afraid though the latter might only be understood as "very quiet, very
>empty".
To the translator falls the heavy burden of deciding which of the possible
meanings to bring through. You'll have to decide not only how you want the
passage understood, but how you *don't* want it understood.
-- ghunchu'wI'