tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jul 11 17:28:22 1994
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Re: Transliteration,etc. Was Re: *boHem*ngan bomnong
When people are talking foreign languages, sometimes they will say word -
word - word - "Los Angeles" - word - word - word, etc...it is perfectly
acceptable to communicate in that fashion. Not all languages have the
word "scooter" {{:-)
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On Tue, 12 Jul 1994, David E G Sturm wrote:
>
> >> 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?"
>
>