tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Jan 27 12:49:36 1994
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Translation, part 2
- From: Creede Lambard <[email protected]>
- Subject: Translation, part 2
- Date: Thu, 27 Jan 1994 22:47:37 -0800 (PST)
My thanks to those who commented on my translation. I have a bit more to say
about it, as well as an updated version, below.
batlh choja', charghwI' quv:
>> ben'a' ...
>> puS Hu' ...
>
>The grammarians can go after the quality of translation. I'll just make
>a cultural remark. "A Klingon MAY be INACCURATE, but he is NEVER
>APPROXIMATE." (CK).
>
>-- charghwI'
True; however, we are discussing a very non-Klingon subject in a very
non-Klingon environment here. At any rate mark has addressed this issue in
the comments below.
batlh choja', mark quv:
>mamISnIS'a'? DaH yapbe''a' mISmaj? :-)
You know what the Discordians say: Confusion is good for the soul.
>"joqghargh" is
>imaginative... "wave-worm"? OK, "joq" is a verb and we don't have a
>mandate for verb-noun compounding. Stick with just "ghargh"; does the
>precise species really matter?
For this particular story, I think it does.
You did not know what I meant by joqghagh, which in my opinion means one of three things:
1. You've never heard this story.
2. You have, but I've sufficiently mangled it so that you didn't
recognize it.
3. Your post was from the point of view of a Klingon instructor attempting
to piece together what the tera'ngan maw' was talking about.
>'ach DaH,
>*qan chang* jIH 'ej ghargh jIH vInajtaH
>pagh ghargh jIH 'ej *qan chang* jIH vInajtaH 'e' vISovbe'.
I don't think this is quite what I was trying to say. Let's try this again,
with a slightly different wording, and then I'll post the English version so
that perhaps you can follow it more easily. I also changed the name of the
critter, based on the statement in TKD that verbs can be used as adjectives.
Sure, it says that only applies to verbs like "be tired" or "be lazy," but
there's no reason that "joq" can't mean "be fluttering," is there? :D
Besides, if I was designing a language, I would name at least some animals by
generic name, specific adjective -- you know, like "homo sapiens."
ben jatlh QubwI' *chang Su* quv:
Hu' ghargh joq jIH 'e' jInaj.
'ach DaH,
ghargh joq ghaH 'e' *chang Su* najpu',
pagh *chang Su* 'oH 'e' ghargh joq najtaH, vISovbe'.
The honored philosopher Chang Tsu said, many years ago:
Some days ago I dreamed that I was a butterfly.
However, ever since then,
I have not known whether I am Chang Tsu
who dreamed that he was a butterfly,
or whether I am a butterfly who is dreaming he is Chang Tsu.
Here's another possibility: Would the particle -'a' be usable to indicate
"whether"? It works that way in Esperanto ("Pluvos" = "It will rain"; "Cxu
pluvos?" = "Will it rain?"; "Mi ne scias cxu pluvos" = "I don't know if it
will rain"), so perhaps the two troublesome phrases could be rendered as
'ach Dah,
ghargh joq ghaH 'e' *chang Su* najpu''a',
pagh *chang Su* 'oh 'e' ghargh joq najtaH'a'.
Notice that I had to make a couple of other changes as well: First, I
misremembered what little Chinese I know, and thought that "Tsu" was "old"
(it isn't, I was misremembering Lao from Lao Tsu). Second, I changed the
tense on one of the naj, for reasons that should be obvious from the English
translation.
I also made one other mistake in that apparently Richard Kennaway has been
doing some translation of Zen koans. I'm now looking through my copy of Zen
Flesh, Zen Bones to see if there are any other stories that would lend
themselves to translation. (Though some of the stories would be difficult to
grasp without a grounding in Zen, there is at least one that is rather
Klingon in nature. :D I'll post it here if people are interested in taking a
shot at it.)
-- Creede
PS It's possible that some of this has been covered in HolQeD; however, at
the moment I have yet to see any issues and don't have the bucks to break
loose for any of the issues. Perhaps after I get the new hard disk and memory
I so desparately need . . .