tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Jul 27 22:44:52 1994
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sayings, and Klingon Translation Ideology
- From: [email protected] (Mark E. Shoulson)
- Subject: sayings, and Klingon Translation Ideology
- Date: Thu, 28 Jul 1994 10:41:09 -0400
- In-Reply-To: "d'Armond Speers"'s message of Wed, 27 Jul 1994 21:53:20 -0400 (EDT) <[email protected]>
>From: "d'Armond Speers" <[email protected]>
>Date: Wed, 27 Jul 1994 21:53:20 -0400 (EDT)
>> > this case, "it" really means "today", so using "it" is rather
>> > idomatic to English and we are not sure it works in Klingon.
>>
>> > jIHeghmeH QaQ DaHjaj.
>> > "For the purpose that I die, today is good."
>> >
>> > charghwI'
>[ deletia...]
>> Well, here's my postulation to solve part of the problem. When a Klingon
>> translates a phrase and uses it in Fed Standard, he or she's not likely
>> to bend it to fit Feddies' ears..."we're" gonna say it just as it was
>> originally formed, as close to the original Klingon idiom (the Idiom
>> problem can work for us as well as against {{:>). So when Worf says "It
>> is a good day to die", I think we can assume the original Klingon is
>> pretty close to that.
>I followed you up to here. Worf is a pretty poor model for tlhIngan
>Hol, and pretty much Klingon things in general. He was raised by
>humans, and although he speaks Klingon (well, he claims to), he's also
>more fluent in English, having lived among feds all his life.
>(Ensign expendable: "qqlkjzid." Worf: "You speak Klingon!")
>As for working with idioms, in order for your argument to hold, you
>have to know what the original idiom was, information we are not privy
>to, unless you know Maltz.
I didn't even follow as far as you did. I'm afraid it's the nature of
languages to construct things differently from each other. We hear
"Surrender or die!"... but the Klingon construction is "If you do not
surrender, you will die". This is because English has an idiomatic usage
for the "or". Klingons also say "We have destroyed the enemy" in English
scenes; that doesn't make their word-order SVO. They were *translating*.
When you translate anything from anything into anything else, it will
*change*, usually drastically. If you don't believe me, read any Bible
translation (it's the most translated book in the world, so you have lots
of examples). There's a Hebrew song that's basically the same as the old
"My hat it has three corners..." but by your logic it would be proof that
in English we say "to the hat which is mine, three corners. Three corners
to the hat which is mine. Unless were to him three corners, not was that
the hat which is mine". After all, the translation would be as close as
possible to the original, right? Not hardly. By that logic, all languages
are the same with different words, and that's surely not the case.
Compare also Okrand's "Between us, curses flow like water" in TKD. Lest
you say that my above examples didn't show real restructuring except as
required by grammar, look at the Klingon version: "matay'DI', vIHtaHbogh
bIQ rur mu'qaDmey" (when we are together, insults resemble moving water).
Or the famous "revenge is a dish best served cold", which we know is
"bortaS bIr jablu'DI', reH QaQqu' nay'" (when cold revenge is served, the
dish is always excellent). Bottom line: you can't just translate the
words. Recall charghwI''s excellent analogy: A sentence is like a puzzle,
with a concept (picture) made up by pieces (words) fitting together. You
can't just try to find Klingon pieces to replace the English pieces, since
they don't fit together the same way. You have to start back from the
picture and cut it up into different pieces.
>--Holtej
~mark