tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu May 26 03:50:50 1994

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Streets and Ends



>From: [email protected] (Robert Baruch)
>Date: Thu, 26 May 94 14:39:04 EDT


>Howdy,

>1.  Can anyone help me come up with a Klingon translation for "the end of the
>street" as in, "I saw him at the end of the street"?

>  I suppose "street" could be "course" { He }, but what about end?
>{ mevghach } ?  How about { taHHa'ghach } = "non-continuation" ?

What was it charghwI' said about translations?  Oh yeah.  If you're
tyhinking in terms of "what Klingon construct *means the same* as English
construct so-and-so?" you're asking for trouble.  Try to recast, if
possible, and think of all meanings for words that make sense (remember,
TKD has just 1-word defs).

Assuming "mevghach" is legal (there are those who don't like "-ghach" on
bare verbs), I'd be more likely to take it to mean "the act of ceasing,
cessation".  What does the street "stop doing"?  It doesn't stop going,
since streets don't go anywhere, they just are: you go *on* them.  Maybe
it's the "ending place" of the street or something, working with "-Daq"
rather than "-ghach".  But I'd probably go with "HeH": the edge of the
street.  That is, the place where it stops.  Yeah, it's ambiguous with the
curb, but that's life.  The curb can be expressed with words like "Dop" if
needed, and front-to-back end by things like "'o'" perhaps.

Or more likely, if you mean that you walked down the street and met him at
the end of your journey, maybe "rInDI' lengwIj vIghom", or "jIlengpu'DI'
vIghom"?

>2.  How about "bum" (the noun, meaning a person who avoids work and seeks
>to live off others)?  Person without honor?

How do you say "A person who avoids work and seeks to live off others?"
How about "vumqangbe'bogh nuv; vummo' latlhpu' yIn 'e' nIDbogh nuv"?  Maybe
you can "'ej" together the relative clauses.  If you want to cast that as
"person without honor", that could be "batlh ghajbe'bogh nuv" or
"quvHa'bogh nuv".

You won't find a word that means "bum" in Klingon, at least not in the
dictionary we currently have.  But you won't find one in Hebrew either.
That doesn't mean you can't say it.  Translate *concepts*, not words.

>--Rob


~mark



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