tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Jan 27 21:30:40 1994
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Translation, part 2
- From: [email protected] (Mark E. Shoulson)
- Subject: Translation, part 2
- Date: Fri, 28 Jan 1994 10:29:34 -0500
- In-Reply-To: Creede Lambard's message of Thu, 27 Jan 1994 22:47:37 -0800 (PST) <[email protected]>
>From: Creede Lambard <[email protected]>
>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', mark quv:
This threw me a sec; I associate this so much with Nick.
>>mamISnIS'a'? DaH yapbe''a' mISmaj? :-)
>You know what the Discordians say: Confusion is good for the soul.
I feel proud to be improving so many souls then :-).
>>"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.
Possibly; but only if the meaning comes across clearly enough. Even
"flutterworm" doesn't really help us see "butterfly" unless we knew it to
start with. We simply don't have enough specific concrete nouns.
>You did not know what I meant by joqghagh, which in my opinion means one of thr
>ee 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.
A little of each. I'd heard the story before, probably in a mangled
version, and I honestly couldn't remember just what critter it was he
dreamed. But I still maintain that precisely what it was is less than
vital. If he'd dreamed he was a fish with the same ending, would the story
be less punchy? Maybe a little, for cultural reasons, but cultural things
like that you certainly can't expect to translate.
>>'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."
This is actually a point of discussion even now, if you noticed. TKD says
that "[a] verb expressing a state or quality" can be used in this way.
This could be understood to mean that verbs which do not express states
cannot. You could always re-cast things to seem adjectival (all Hebrew
present tense "verbs" are technically adjectives/nouns), but that seems to
be avoiding the issue. I'm starting to be less inclined to use apparently
active verbs adjectivally in Klingon.
>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'.
We've been using question-words with "'e'" and "net" similarly, and it
makes sense, so I think it's a working method. We've used things like
"mughoS 'Iv 'e' vISovbe'" for "I don't know who's approaching me" ("Who's
approaching me? I don't know that" sorta).
>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.
You're right; the "-pu'" versus "-taH" here works very nicely. But note
that you never say that "I don't know whether *I am* ..." You dropped the
"jIH"s, and so it looks like you're always talking about "he" and "it".
Also, I don't follow "ghargh joq ghaH 'e' *chang Su* najpu''a'" I suspect
you meant "ghargh joq ghaH 'e' najpu''a' *chang Su*". remember, subject at
the end.
In order to make "Chang Tsu *who* dreamed he was a butterfly", you have to
use "-bogh" somewhere, to make it a relative clause.
~mark