tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Aug 28 16:14:25 1994
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Re: tlhoQ vIjangbogh
[Guido #1]vo':
> I still do not understand why there could be a problem with the *way* I
> transliterate anything. Why should anyone care if I make it {'ewrop} or
> {yurop} or {yuvrop} or {'oSu}, SO LONG AS I *MARK* THE TRANSLITERATION AS
> WELL AS INDICATE WHAT THE NAME IS IN ENGLISH ORTHOGRAPHY SO PEOPLE WILL
> RECOGNIZE IT! The caps were for a very good reason.
Personally, I don't really care if you do this. I was only trying to get
you to think about using a systematic method for rendering English words
in Klingon and pointing out the various methods and problems in doing so.
In other words, I you really feel that strongly about writing English
words in Klingon, I would personally prefer that you transcribe these
words in such a way so that a reader can easily figure them out. I'm
frustrated enough looking up Klingon words without having to read any
footnotes or glossary of terms to figure out what the English says.
If everyone on this list were to simply invent his or her own ad hoc
"Klingonized" words to represent English words and one person uses
{'ewrop} and another person uses {'oshu} to mean the same thing, I
personally would find that rather frustrating. Also, as someone new
to this list, I have a habit of writing down every new word not found
in my TKD. If you do write "{'ewrop} = Europe", PLEASE indicate that
this is a translation of your own creation and not an Official(tm) word.
This is my own 2 centicredits worth. I'm not trying to tell you what to
do. I'm just expressing my own personal opinion. Actually, I'd like
to see you come up with the definitive, authoritative list of Terran
Bibliographical, Geographical and Historical Names in Klingon; submit it to
Paramount; have it published; make a million dollars; and then I could
send you E-mail messages like: "Hey Guido, how do I spell
'Barbezieux-St.-Hilaire' in Klingon?" {{:-)>
> You see, I am not by any means making up Klingon words, as you say. That is
> not the nature of transliteration. We say "Maltz" and "Kruge" and "Kronos".
> Are these made up English words? Of course not. They are names that English
> speakers have used to try to imitate the original Klingon pronunciation.
I think we are miscommunicating because you and I are talking about two
different things when we say "transliterate". When I was talking
about transliterating English words into Klingon, I was talking about
trying to use a regular, systematic formula for transcribing English
using Klingon sounds, and avoid doing it in an arbitrary manner. Using that
definition, I would not consider Maltz or Kruge to be true
transliterations; they are simply the way we translate these names in English.
Let me give you a different example. "Moscow", "Tschaikovsky", and
"czar" are, respectively, a place, a name, and a word, all of Russian
origin, which are commonly used in the English vocabulary. They are not
true transliterations because they do not accurately reflect the spelling
or pronunciation in the original Russian. If I transliterated these
words to indicate the Russian spelling and pronuciation, I would use:
<Moskva>, <Chaykovskiy> and <tsar'>. In other words, "Moscow" is the
English *translation* of the Russian word <Moskva> the same way "Maltz"
is the English translation of {matlh}.
...
> point. When I speak Klingon, why can't I be purist as far as
> phonology/orthography is concerned, if I indicate what I meant in ( )s?
qay'be'! Just stick to being a purist to English phonology/orthography
and use it when you transliterate English into Klingon.
> Contrary to what you wrote, we *do* know an awful lot about Klingon
> phonology. I'd urge you to read Allen Wechsler's article in HolQeD 1:1. It's
> classic.
I think you misunderstood me. What I was trying to say was: We don't
really know how a Klingon would pronounce English words. (Except for the
ones in the movies, who apparently speak better English than Klingon. {{;-)
Here's an example of how sounds change from one language to another. The
Russian alphabet has all the letters to spell "Guido", but in Russian,
your name would not be <g-u-i-d-o>; it would be rendered as <Gvido>
because that is the way a Russian would naturally pronounce and spell it.
Likewise, Quebec and Guiana are <Kvebek> and <Gviana>.
So how do Klingons pronounce foreign sounds? Your guess is as good as
mine. If someone has worked this out, tell me, I'd surely like to
know.
> There is no real standard transliteration system defined between any two
> languages that I can think of. If you know of one, please enlighten me.
I can think of MANY standardized, defined tranliteration systems. The
Russian examples above are using the U.S. Board on Geographic Names
tranliteration system, used by most U.S. government offices and
publications.
But if you are asking whether there exists perfect, unwavering,
used-by-everyone, no-exceptions-to-the-rule transliteration systems between
one language and another, the answer is yes. There are many which exist
between those Slavic languages which use the Latin alphabet, and those
which use the Cyrillic alphabet, and which have been officially
standardized by the governments of various Eastern European countries.
But I think this topic digresses from the subject of Klingon.
> Guido#1, Leader of All Guidos
yoDtargh