tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Nov 19 02:53:53 1993

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Re: Comments on translations

>Anyway, this makes for trouble when we have phrases with nouns that already
>have type 5 suffixes.

True, however see my HolQeD article on the topic.

>  And it also makes for trouble when the noun is being
>used differently in the relative clause and the main clause (e.g. "Because
>of the ship in which I fled").  You can cook up your own hairy examples.
>[Hmm, while typing this I came up with a possibly good proposed solution;
>I'll post it later.  It'd need Okrandian sanction pretty badly, though.]  I
>ran into this problem a few times, like "Let us cast lots [I put 'gamble']
>to find out because of whom this bad event happens to us."  This gives us
>another problem of what to do about the relative pronoun; I'm not sure
>"'Iv" is right for it; it's a question word.  I used, tentatively, "nuvmo'
>maHvaD qaSbogh wanI'vam qab maSovmeH maSuDjaj".  Any better plans?

I'd do:  maHvaD wanI'vam qab qaSmoH 'Iv 'e' wIghojmeH maSuDjaj

Note that I *am* using 'Iv as a question, by one of my prefered
techniques.  The two sentences break down into:

Who causes this bad event to happen to us?  Let us gamble in order to
learn that.

>Similarly later, when they address him as "you, because of whom this bad
>event happens to us" (the Hebrew is really obscure, this is one reading), I
>translate "SoHmo' maHvaD qaSbogh wanI'vam qab".  Same deal.

Badly ambiguous at best.  I keep reading it as "This bad thing that
happens to us because of you."  Mayhaps:  SoH, maHvaD wanI'vam qab
qaSmoHbogh nuv

>There was a problem at one point with distribution (every vs. all).  The
>verse says "[each] man called to his god", meaning his own.  If I said
>"joHDajvaD jach Hoch", might that more likely mean "they all called to his
>[maybe Jonah's] god" (assuming "joH" is okay for "god").  The trouble is
>that "Hoch" is both "all" and "each".  I used "joHchajvaD", since for some
>reason the other meaning just seemed too likely.

Tough problem, I think you picked the best solution available.

>I "coined" a word for "whence" or "from where", which feels like the Right
>Thing: "nuqvo'".  The word for "where" is "nuqDaq", plainly a locative of
>"nuq", and I want the ablative, so "nuqvo'" it is.  Any better
>suggestions/objections/death threats?

I used to do it that way, but I've changed my mind.  I now would use
nuqDaqvo', under the following logic:  I'm making a compound out of nuq
Daqvo'.  So, literally "from what place".  Afterall, one could certainly
think of nuqDaq as a compound of nuq and Daq, "what place", despite the
claim that it is nuq + -Daq on page 69.

>I also made use of the object place in other ways.  For example, Nineveh is
>described as being "three days' journey [across, presumably]".  So I said
>"wej jaj nI' lengDaj": its voyage is long three days.  You have to stretch
>your mind for this one.

Yeah, maybe.  How about:  wej jaj poQ lengDaj


>Any ideas (aside from law'/puS, which is probably too hairy to put into an
>already hairy sentence) on how to say "more than 120000 people" (in "that
>has more than 120000 people... in it")?  Last sentence.  There may be no
>way other than law'/puS, in which case I'm probably better off leaving it
>out, but I wish I could find one.

*What* has more than 120000 people?  I'll assume it's a city.  So how
about:

120000 juSbogh roghvaH ghajbogh veng'e'

            --Krankor

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