tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Feb 07 01:53:39 2004
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Re: Genesis 1:1-5
> Sorry this took so long...
That's ok, I'm currently swamped with exams until the end of February.
Reading my email is a privilege (not sure if I'm supposed to put a happy or
sad smiley here...)
> > 1 mungDaq chal ghor je chenmoHta' Qun.
>
> "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."
> "At the origin, a supernatural being created the sky and the
> planet surface."
>
> One big obstacle that many projects like this run into is
> that Klingon really has no word for "God". {Qun} could just
> as easily refer to {veqlargh}. IIRC, Dr. Schoen, who has
> worked on the KBTP, uses {joH'a'} "great lord". I have also
> seen {Qun'a'}. (I personally lean toward Dr. Schoen's choice.)
Ah yes, the "God" issue - I thought about this and I wrote a footnote which
I left out in order to be brief:
"Originally 'elohim' - the plural form of 'el' (god), which hints to some
kind of inherent plurality. Nevertheless translated as a single {Qun} (god)
in order to convey the Bible's monotheistic viewpoint to the Klingon reader.
Other, more confusing translations might be: {Qunpu'} (literal translation
of 'elohim') and {Qun'a'} (implies actual existence of other, lesser deities
- to whom the term {Qunqoq} might be more appropriate, again, according to
the Bible's monotheistic viewpoint). Cf. {joH'a'} and 'tlhIngan-Hol'
mailing-list, 19 July 1999: a quote of Marc Okrand describing ancient
Klingon polytheism.
As for {joH'a'} - IMHO {joH'a'} is an excellent translation to "Lord", or
"adonay" in Hebrew (a supernatural lord being greater than any other mortal
{joHpu'}). I believe Dr. Schoen addressed this in the intro to his
translation of "Jonah" (in this mailing list's archives) and if I'm not
mistaken he used this word before {Qun} even existed...
(I just read that post again now, seems like quite a few of new words came
by that would have made his work easier).
Lastly, as a loyal Buffy fan, I'm obligated to point out that not every
supernatural being is a god... :)
> Like Sangqar, I'm also not so sure about the use of {ghor}.
> It might be my English getting in the way, but it seems that
> it refers to a planet's surface, as opposed to a planet's
> atmosphere, or a planet's tectonic plates. I would go with
> {yav} "ground".
Yes, I prefer this as well.
> This use of {mung} "feels" wrong to me, as well. You could
> try something like {taghDI' Hoch} "When everything began..."
Isn't {Hoch taghlu'DI'} more appropriate, indicating that everything _begun_
instead of _began_?
> Also, the use of "In the beginning" already places this in
> the past. You needn't indicate it further with aspect. Your
> first sentence, for instance, could indicate that when the
> beginning started, the sky and ground were already formed.
maj! For some reason I failed to connect between knowing that Klingons
associate tense with the sentence's context, with or without an aspect, and
between writing things like a continuous action in the past, or an action
already completed in the past (forgot how these tenses are called). I guess
I need some things spelled out specifically for me. :)
> > 2 'ej chenbe'pu' ghor 'ej chImpu' 'oH, 'ej Hurgh
> Qargh'a' bIS'ub, 'ej
> bIQ
> > DungDaq leng Qun qa'.
>
> "The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon
> the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over
> the face of the waters." "And the ground did not take form,
> and *it* was empty, and the bottom of the great fissure was
> dark, and the spirit of God travelled over the water."
>
> OK, let's start with {chenbe' yav}. This may not work with
> the Hebrew, but you might want to say something like {tlham
> Hutlh yav} "The ground lacked order." (Lit, gravity.) This
> *might* be closer to the "chaos" idea you spoke of. {chIm
> 'oH} This emphasizes the {'oH}. You are saying explicitly
> that the thing that is empty is the ground. Unless this is
> called for by the Hebrew, I don't think this is necessary.
> You can just say {chIm}. As for combining the {chIm} and the
> {tlham Hutlh} into one OVS construct, I can't think of a way
> to do it. Verbs can't be combined in the way you suggested;
> {je} is used to combine nouns. If you want to stick with
> {chenbe' yav}, you could combine the two verbs like this:
> {chenbe' 'ej chIm yav} "The ground did not take form and was
> empty." But this is still two separate constructs. Using
> {tlham Hutlh}, this part would be: {chIm yav, 'ej tlham
> Hulth,} "The ground was empty, and it lacked order,..."
tlham - now that's an elegant Klingon re-phrasing! I'd have to think about
this... I have a long way to go before I'll be fluent enough as to form an
opinion on the spot. :)
'oH - point taken. And indeed there's no emphasis on "it" (there isn't any
"it" at all)
An unrelated question though: am I correct in translating {chenbe' yav 'ej
chIm} as "the ground did not take form and it was empty", and {chenbe' 'ej
chIm yav} as "the ground was empty and it did not take form"?
> But, does the Hebrew call for "great fissure", or the like,
> where the KJ English calls for "the deep"?
The word in Hebrew is "tehom" - literally an abyss. Nowadays, "tehom" can be
used for any kind of abyss/chasm (underwater, underground, or not). But in
this specific biblical sense, according to every interpretation I've looked
up, it's explicitly the bottom of some kind of "watery" substance (explicit,
eh?). To be accurate, there's no claim that it's even deep, other than the
assumption that only deep water is dark...
On the other hand, if I understand correctly, "the deep" could just as well
mean "deep under the ground"? This would be wrong.
The reason for this detailed treatment of this single word is that it serves
as an indicator to the ancient Babylonian myth of creation (tehom = Tiamat,
the evil goddess of salty ocean water) - some people point out the
differences between the 2 creation stories, others the similarities, doesn't
really matter. The point, as weird as it sounds, is that this abyss thingee
has nothing to do with either ground or water as we know them: "water" isn't
divided in half in order to become the "sky" and the "seas/oceans" until the
second day, and only after that happens the "ground" starts to appear.
I struggled with this word for quite a while. I guess "great fissure" is the
most literal, but more importantly the most neutral word I could think of.
Other suggestions are very welcome.
> > 3 <<wovchoH>> jatlh Qun, 'ej ghIq wovchoHta'.
>
> "And God said, 'Let there be light'; and there was light."
> "God said 'It becomes bright'. and then it had become bright."
>
> "Let there be light" has always seemed to be a command to me.
> Go with what the Hebrew tells you. If it is an imperative in
> Hebrew, use {yIwovchoH!} "Become bright!". If it's more of a
> wish statement ("May it become bright"), you could use
> {wovchoHjaj (Hoch)} "May (everything) become bright." If it's
> a statement, stick with your original {wovchoH}. Everything
> else is good.
It is indeed a command, and "yIwovchoH" was my first guess, but I couldn't
be sure if it's ok to use {yI-} since there's no specific "you" or "you
(plural)" to be commanded.
> > 4 'ej QaQ wovtaHghachvam 'e' legh Qun, 'ej wovtaHghachvam
> > HurghtaHghachvetlh je chev Qun.
>
> "And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the
> light from the darkness." "And God saw that this 'lightness'
> was good, and God separated this 'lightness' and that 'darkness'."
>
> I share your reservations about the {-taHghach} thing. You
> could try {wovbogh Hoch} "Everything bright", and {Hurghbogh
> Hoch} "Everything dark". You could also use {wovwI'} "Thing
> which is bright", but it seems weak to me.
Sangqar also had a very nice suggestion: {poH wov} and {poH Hurgh}. By the
way, if I'm not mistaken, doesn't {wovbogh Hoch} mean "everything which
reflects light"?
> As an alternative to {legh}, you could use {tu'} "to find".
> This use is supported in canon: {De' pegh vIghaj. lI' 'e'
> Datu'. 'uQ wISoppu'DI', maja'chuq} "I have secret
> information. You will find it useful. We will talk after dinner." (PK)
>
> {'ej QaQ wovbogh Hoch 'e' tu' joH'a', 'ej Hurghbogh Hochvo'
> wovbogh Hoch chev. "And God found everything bright to be
> good, and He separated everything bright from everything dark."
jIHvaD muQap. I think judging something to be good fits better than actual
sight (an idiom?).
> > 5 'ej wovtaHghachvaD <<pem>> pong Qun, HurghtaHghachvaD
> <<ram>> pong
> je;
> > choS tu'lu', ghIq po tu'lu' - wa' jaj.
>
> "God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.
> And there was evening and there was morning, one day." "And
> God called the 'lightness' 'day', and the 'darkness' 'night'.
> There was twilight, then there was morning. One day."
>
> All the suggestions I had for everything up to {choS tu'lu'}
> in your sentence are found above, and would read: {'ej
> wovbogh HochvaD <<pem>> pong Qun, 'ej Hurghbogh HochvaD <<
> ram>> pong.} "And God named everything bright 'Day', and
> everything dark 'Night'."
>
> This verse has never really been clear to me. Is the original
> text saying that "morning" and "evening" come about by virtue
> of the separation of light and dark, with these two times
> serving as a segue into night and day (as Fall is to Winter,
> and Spring to Summer?) Or is the text stating that one
> morning and one evening happened, and that constituted one day?
>
> If the first is the case, you could try something like:
> {choS moj pem, 'ej po moj ram. qaSpu' wa' jaj.}
> "Daytime became twilight, and night became morning. One day
> had happened."
>
> For the second case, you could say:
> {qaS po, choS je. wa' jaj 'oH}
> "A morning and a twilight happend. It was one day."
That's a very good question! In Hebrew, the first day is different than the
rest since it specifies "one day" instead of "first day" (the other days use
ordinal numbers - second, third, etc.). The meaning of this, I'm told, is
that (only) for the first day the latter translation is correct (a
definition of the day), while the rest of the days summarize the passage of
time from the day's beginning (the evening) until the next day.
> I think I'm done now. Thanks for your patience.
Qo', _SoH_ qatlho' _jIH_!
bIjaj
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