tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Nov 12 12:24:07 2014
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Re: [Tlhingan-hol] Seeking a paragraph's translation
Thank you /very/ much for what you claim is merely an "attempt at
translation" - it's certainly much better than I could have managed on
my own, especially in the time since my post.
Some languages focus entirely on the sounds of names; some attempt to
also incorporate some aspect of the meaning, such as Japanese Kanji.
It seems safe enough to focus on the sounds when dealing with Klingon.
The nominal goal of these translations is, as you suspected, the
perspective of the future viewer of a cryonically-preserved body; with
the speaker being the body's pre-mortem self, in the (distant?) past.
English lets me get away with being vague on the tenses, but one
solution might be for the final two sentences, the request for
revival, to be treated differently from the preceding ones.
I've read a few things by Douglas Hofstadter, so I'm well aware that
'exact match' and 'translation' aren't concepts that play well
together.
> DIS wa'SanID SochmaH jav
If my page-flipping is right, this works out to 'year 1076'; did you
mean for that to be '1976', just leaving out Hutvatlh, or are you
using a Klingon calendar? If the latter, do you have a reference for
it handy?
> jIlaDqu' 'ej jIyIt 'e' vItIv.
> jIyInqa' 'ej jIlaDqa' 'ej jIyItqa' vIneH.
Comparing these two sentences, should 'e' be added to the latter, just
before vIneH?
... And that's the extent of my ability to come up with a cogent
reply. I look forward to any other posts to this thread.
(As an aside, the mailing list doesn't seem to be passing on any
messages that are sent To: an individual and Cc:ed to the list itself;
I don't know if that's because of my particular settings, or if it's
how the list software is configured for all members.)
On Wed, Nov 12, 2014 at 1:03 PM, <[email protected]> wrote:
> This kind of translation is challenging in an ugly, unrewarding kind of way, since such a large portion of it involves proper nouns, measuring systems that don't translate neatly. While you can translate the meaning of a name, this is an odd choice because it is highly unlikely that anybody would recognize the place by the meaning of its name. Even "Newfoundland" borders on being unrecognizable if you called it "newly discovered property", especially since it was discovered a long time ago. Newfoundland now means something different than it did when it was named.
>
> Places have names that mean nothing except "the name of this place" once the name is set. Ditto for people. How many people named "Hope" or "Grace" place great meaning in their names? I have an aunt Ingabeau. Her name is not "Pretty Little Thing". It's Ingabeau.
>
> And transliteration is not always pretty.
>
> I notice that part of your text suffer from a deictic shift. Are you writing this from your now-living, sitting in front of your keyboard deictic reference, or from the future deictic reference of the reader, standing in front of the plaque with your text written on it, next to the large freezer with you in it? You talk about what you now do, and then you ask if there is anyone who now can heal you. Which now do you want the message to convey? I'm suspecting that it would be more appropriate to plant "now" in the reference of the reader who has discovered the very cold container that your remains are in, requesting their assistance.
>
> Using that as the deictic anchor, here's my attempt at translation. I'm sure many comments on my errors of judgement will follow:
>
> pongwIj 'oH <<Danyel 'elIyet boS>>. <<wInnIpegh>>Daq tera' DIS wa'SanID SochmaH jav jIbogh. chorgh qelI'qam 'aD juHwIj <<nayaghra' valSe'>> je joj.
>
> jIlaDqu' 'ej jIyIt 'e' vItIv.
>
> 'aDDu'wIjDaq chenbe'meH chuch taDchoHDI' lomwIj jIHeghpu'DI' Hoch 'IwwIjvaD taS le' tamlu'ta'. jIyInqa' 'ej jIlaDqa' 'ej jIyItqa' vIneH. chopIvmoHlaHchugh, yIvang. choQaHchugh qatlho'.
>
> It's not an exact match, but this is translation, not encoding.
>
>> On Nov 12, 2014, at 5:28 AM, DataPacRat <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> Certainly, and thank you kindly.
>>
>>
>> The current draft of the English version reads: "My name is Daniel
>> Eliot Boese. I was born in the city of Winnipeg on the twelfth day of
>> October in the year 1976 AD. I live about ten miles west of Niagara
>> Falls. I like to read a lot and to hike. When I die, my blood will be
>> removed and replaced with a substance that does not make ice crystals,
>> and then my body will be made very cold. I would like to live and to
>> read and to hike again. If you know how to heal me and help me to
>> live, please do so. Thank you for your time."
>>
>> The current set of notes: For translations that depend on sound:
>> 'Boese' rhymes with 'rose'. For translations that depend on meaning:
>> I've seen 'Daniel' translated as 'God is judge' or 'God's judge';
>> 'Eliot' as 'The Lord is God' or 'height'; and 'Boese' derives from a
>> Germanic word for 'wicked'. As I'm both an atheist and a member of an
>> ethics board, I personally find the translation 'judge of the height
>> of God's wickedness' amusing, however technically inaccurate it may
>> be. ('Winnipeg' derives from 'muddy/cloudy waters', and 'Niagara' from
>> 'neck' meaning 'neck of land' or 'strait', though the tourist board
>> suggests 'thundering waters'.) If there is a more appropriate calendar
>> for the language's main culture than Gregorian, the date should be
>> translated into that; the same goes for the measurement system. The
>> 'substance' is a liquid, a sort of anti-freeze.
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Nov 11, 2014 at 5:16 PM, DloraH <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> Go ahead and post it here, and we can start discussing the various possible translations.
>>>
>>>
>>> -- DloraH
>>>
>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: DataPacRat [mailto:[email protected]]
>>>> Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2014 15:49
>>>> To: [email protected]
>>>> Subject: [Tlhingan-hol] Seeking a paragraph's translation
>>>>
>>>> To whom it may concern,
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I have a piece of text, about a hundred words in English, which I'm
>>>> hoping to translate into as wide a spectrum of languages as possible.
>>>> I would be quite happy to include tlhIngan Hol in that list. While I
>>>> could certainly make my own attempt, with my old copy of the 'Klingon
>>>> Dictionary', I don't trust myself to get everything right, let alone
>>>> know about any relevant updates that have been made to the language
>>>> since its publication.
>>>>
>>>> Would anyone here be interested in helping me?
>>
>>
>>
>> Thank you for your time,
>> --
>> DataPacRat
>> "Then again, I could be wrong."
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Tlhingan-hol mailing list
>> [email protected]
>> http://mail.kli.org/mailman/listinfo/tlhingan-hol
>
--
Thank you for your time,
--
DataPacRat
"Then again, I could be wrong."
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