tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon May 26 20:37:57 2003
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Re: Quote translation
At 07:07 AM 5/27/2003 +0600, Se'noj wrote:
>Sajatlh,
>I'm trying toi translate the Emiliano Zapata quote "It is better to die on
>your feet than to live on your knees!" into Klingon. The best I could get is:
>
>Hegh yoH batlh law' yIn yoHHa' batlh puS!
>
>Any way you can think to improve it?
{batlh} is only an adverbial and a noun. {quv} is a verb and a noun, so you
can use that as the Quality verb here:
{Hegh yoH quv law' yIn yoHHa' quv puS}
"A brave death is more honorable than a cowardly (unbrave) life."
I'm not sure, though, whether "a death" can be brave/cowardly or not. The
*person* who died could be brave/cowardly, but saying {Hegh yoH} sounds
strange to me.
To me, your translation captures the meaning well, without using the
metaphor of "ON YOUR FEET" is BRAVE, "ON YOUR KNEES" is COWARDLY. Looking
at the phrase in English, I would have considered "ON YOUR FEET" to be
FREEDOM, and "ON YOUR KNEES" to be SLAVERY.
The "official" translation of the phrase (see page 95 of The Klingon Way),
however, avoids this by leaving the standing/kneeling metaphor as is.
- taD