tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jul 11 14:09:10 1994

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Transliteration,etc. Was Re: *boHem*ngan bomnong

>> HoD voghyoy wrote:
>HoD Qanqor wrote:
>>It is absolutely important to emphasize that anytime you use a word that 
>>is not in direct evidence in the corpus to flag it.
>>And of course, the traditional way is simple.  Just remember to put an 
>>asterisk in front of the word which is not in evidence, e.g.
>> >*SIp<   n sheep   <transliteration of English to describe Terran animal

> I should like to take this opportunity to remind people that the policy of
> this list is to frown upon transliteration.  It makes it look all clever
> and all but it is hard to read and understand, and sometimes you have to
> just admit that Klingon just doesn't have a word for a thing and use the
> English.  Especially proper nouns, like "Philadelphia".  Some amount
> of transliteration shows up here because we get posts of things from
> the translation projects, which, understandably, have some different
> guidelines.  But as far as basic list conversation, it is better to
> not obfuscate.  *maS'e'chu'Setlh is just inherantly harder to grok
> than just saying "Massachusetts", and going through the trouble to
> figure it out doesn't teach you anything about Klingon anyway.

I strongly agree with the khodr on this issue.  And add that going the 
other way with a thlingonkhol phrase is equally a cardinal and mortal sin!
As these previous sentences should clue you in to.  I would suggest 
though, that it does teach you something about Klingon *phonology*, 
particularly that just as with Russian, just because it is written with a 
D symbol or a S, does not mean it has the same method of production.
That's an even better reason for not writing *vIl'a' DelvIy'a'...

Unfortunately, Marc Okrand includes some disgusting examples of straight 
transliteration....  Such as 
>tlhaq<  n chronometer (yeah, well it's just "clock")
>QonoS<  n journal, log (yeah, well looks like a "chronos" to me)
and the more forgivable place names such as 
>vulqan< place Vulcan
>romuluS< place Ch'Rihan (BTW, the Klingons would use the Fed name for a
                          race they knew before the UFP!?!?!? Right.)
>telun< place Tellun  (why not >tellun<?  Then we can say ours is the 
                       transliteration of Klingon!  Then again, maybe it is.)
>SermanyuQ< place Sherman's planet (If I didn't know that Dave Gerrold named
                                    the place for a girl, Holly Sherman, I
                                    would again suggest we transliterated the
                                    original Klingon name...)

So if I wanted the Tholian Empire, following Okrand's example, I think it 
would be okay to create:
>*tlholuS< Tholus
>*tlholuSngan wo'< Tholian Empire.    or even
>*(Sol, merQIy, vIynuS, tera', martuS, jupter, SeturnuS, yurnuS, 
neptun, pIlu 'to', persevone')....<
But I think the * freedom extends freely *only* on space places, not 
modern Earth places.... (Fortunately Biblical places don't require much 
change when transliterating--hmmmm, maybe Klingon is the language of one 
of the lost tribes....  Maybe the Age of Ascension is when Klingon males 
are circumcised!  Ouch, what a bar mitzvah oldstyle!!!!!!!!!!!  I bet 
they don't have a redundant backup for that... or then again, maybe that 
is why Troi is smiling a lot more.....)

BTW, >*SIp< has appeared in the WALL STREET JOURNAL!  Maybe I should drop 
the asterisk now....

[email protected]                        overheard- "Pardon me, but if I must
David E G Sturm, Laboratory Manager (eff 8/94)     operate in a vacuum, can
Wake Forest University Department of Physics       I at least have a little
POB 7261 Reynolda Station, Winston-Salem NC 27109  ether to calm my nerves?"

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