tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Jun 30 10:40:36 1993
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A Translation Exercise
- From: Peter Garza <[email protected]>
- Subject: A Translation Exercise
- Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 11:36:30 -0500 (CDT)
I have been trying to think of a translation for a quote from
Apocalypse Now that seems like it would be used by a Klingon (or
tlhIngan). I have been trying to translate "I love the smell of
napalm in the morning. Smells like...victory." Since I don't believe
that there is still napalm in Star Trek, and phasers leave no scent to
my knowledge, I figured maybe photon torpedoes would have some sort of
exhaust gas that could be smelled. Here goes.
po cha pIw vIparHa'qu' jIH. yay pIw ghaj 'oH.
A couple of notes and questions:
1) Would "po" take a suffix to denote "in the morning". Perhaps
"-Daq", but that seems to have more of a physical meaning.
2) Does the use of "-qu'" act like the noun suffix "'a'", turning
parHa'=like into parHa'qu'=love (like intensely)?
3)I wasn't sure how to get the sense of "like victory". I couldn't
find anything like it in TKD, but maybe I missed something. Idecided
that this translation was poetic enough to have the same, or at least
similar, feel. Some other possible translations for the second
sentence follow:
yay 'oH pIw'e' 'oHbogh.
yay pIw He' 'oH.
4) Can "He'" be used as "It smells like ..." or is it just "It smells."
So there it is. "I love the smell of torpedoes in the morning.
Smells like victory." Or at least a rough equivalent. Any comments?
batlh tlhIngan jIH
Peter