tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Oct 19 17:19:41 2006
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KLBC: A Failure to Communicate
- From: McArdle <[email protected]>
- Subject: KLBC: A Failure to Communicate
- Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2006 17:19:06 -0700 (PDT)
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Esteemed grammarian (and others should feel free to pitch in as well, as far as I'm concerned):
I'm trying to translate "What we have here is a failure to communicate" into Klingon. I realize that there are many ways to do this, ranging from free and pithy (and probably more authentically Klingon), to literal and wordy. For example,
maQumlaHbe' 'e' vItu'
(if grammatical) really seems to capture the core of the meaning. (Should I be using {-chuq} to indicate that I'm referring to communication with each other, or is this unnecessary and/or wrong?)
The kind of translation I'm really looking for is something that, while (at least) not incorrect, is reminiscent enough of the English version so that a Klingon familiar with 20th-century Terran motion pictures would recognize its source. Here's my best shot:
QumHa'ghach naQ 'oH ghu''e' naDev wItu'taHbogh
I guess my basic questions are
(1) what have I gotten wrong here?
(2) are there better ways to express this?
I've been going through the discussion group archives and I notice that early on (late '93/early '94, which is as far as I've gotten so far) there was a lot of talk about whether -ghaj and -ghach should be avoided as particularly tera'ngan-sounding. How has this debate evolved? Would {wIghajbogh} have been acceptable instead of {wItu'taHbogh}? How about {Doch} for {ghu'}?
Another thing: it seems wrong to me to use {-taH} with {ghaj}, even though I have no trouble using it with {tu'}. Is there any real basis for this in tlhIngan Hol, or is this just an English-speaker's prejudice?
TIA
McA
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