tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Aug 28 22:47:58 1994

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Re: KLBC: Another saying



According to Bill Willmerdinger:
> 
>  uu> You are not ready to count your enemy's losses until you have learned
>  uu> to count your own.  And remember that some enemies will never have
>  uu> learned to count.

... 
> I would have rephrased this as "Before you can count the losses of your enemy,
> you must learn to count your own losses", simply to make it a bit clearer who
> is doing what when *in Hol*.  Also, you left off the "learned" part
> altogether.
> 
> Here's my attempt, -ghach's included.
> 
> jaghlI' chIlghachmey DatoghlaHpa' chIlghachmeylI' Datogh 'e' DaghojnIS

Not bad. The only questionable point is that once an enemy or a
soldier is referred to as a "loss", it is questionable that he
is capable of using language. You followed the model of the
earlier translation, but you might consider using
{chIlghachmeylIj}.

> Now is a good time to say that I don't generally favor the use of -ghach like
> this, and that "losses" in this regard is idiomatic and probably not a Klingon
> way of refering to the deaths of fellow warriors.  So, to be more accurate, I
> think I'd say this:
> 
> Heghbogh jaghpu'lI' mI' DatoghlaHpa' Heghbogh SuvwI'pu'lI' mI' Datogh 'e'
> DaghojnIS
> 
> "Before you can count the number of your enemies who (will) die, you must
> learn to count the number of your warriors who (will) die."

I agree that, in my opinion, this translation is better. My one
concern is that we are making a presumption about how a Klingon
would translate {Datogh 'e' DaghojnIS}. You interpret it to
mean, "You must learn to count them." I would tend to interpret
this as, "You must learn that you count them." I see this as
closer to learning whether or not you count them, as opposed to
learning HOW to count them.

This puts me in conflict with Guido's discomfort with the
question word {chay'}. Since we disagree on this, I must forge
ahead with my own opinion. I would follow Krankor's example
given in a HolQeD article I cannot specifically cite just now.
This combines the question "How do you count them?" and "You
must learn that." The result, otherwise retaining your
suggestions is:

Heghbogh jaghpu'lI' mI' DatoghlaHpa' chay' Heghbogh
SuvwI'pu'lI' mI' Datogh 'e' DaghojnIS.

In this case, though the soldiers are dead, the term soldier
usually refers to one capable of language, so I retain the use
of {-lI'}.

> > jaghlI' chIlghachmey Datoghrup
> 
> Same thing.  I'd say:
> 
> toghnIS chaH 'e' rut lughojbe' jaghlI' 'e' DaqawnIS
> 
> "You must remember that sometimes your enemies do not learn that they need to
> count."

majQa!

> (To the List in general:  is it okay to have two sentence-as-object
> constructions in the same sentence?)

HIja'. You can have a string of them. Do it too much and you
become difficult to understand, so moderation is good, but to
convey a thought, you can have more of them.

> Qob

charghwI'



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