tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu May 26 05:10:20 1994

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Klingon Advertisement



>Date: Thu, 26 May 1994 13:21:38 -0600
>Content-Length: 1158


>(This is from the news net.  Could someone translate?   -paul-)

Eeeeeeyuck!!!!  I don't know which is worse: the gibberish Klingon on the
shows these days, or garbage like this, which obviously is the product of
"a little knowledge":  Someone has TKD and looks up English words one at a
time and then transcribes them badly.  Watch:

> From: [email protected] (Colette Reap)
>Newsgroups: rec.arts.startrek.info
>Subject: Klingon Advert
>Date: 26 May 1994 06:34:18 GMT
>Organization: Vulcan Science Academy, Tau Ceti Sector


>The Trustees Savings Bank in the UK has decided on a new policy to attract
>youngsters into its fold - it is advertising in Klingon.

>I have a full page ad in front of me - it looks like this:

>	    What would you
>	     say to 6 free 
>	   cinema vouchers


>	    (picture of a Klingon, with 'speech bubble'
>	     saying "nob blH naDEV"

Presumable "nob bIH naDev", a word-for-word translation of "give them
here", if you don't know how to conjugate verbs.  Should be "bIH HInob" or
"jIHvaD yInob" or something.

>the rest of the text goes:

>yljat1hQo' 'lj joj 13-15? Dl'Sa poSmoH a TSB FirstSave Account Sa suq a cash

Let's see.  First word is obviously "yIjatlhQo'", from the phrasebook,
given as "be quiet/don't speak".  Not sure how it fits in.  "Shut up and
listen or something?  "'Ij" (likely what they meant for "*'lj") does mean
"listen".  "joj" is "between", presumably asking "Between 13 and 15?"
"*Dl'Sa" is presumable "*DI'Sa".  They seem to be doing something weird
with "Sa" here.  It seems to be used as an alternate for
"tlhIH"/"you-plural".  Maybe from the prefix for "I -> you pl."?  If so,
and if they took "DI'" as a word meaning "as soon as" (instead of a suffix
meaning "as soon as"), then we have "as soon as you open a TSB firstsave
acct", since "poSmoH" is given as "to open".  Again, no conjugation.  "Sa
suq": taking "Sa" for "you" again, we have "you get", from "Suq"/"get".

>card 'e' jaj teq vo' 6,000 cash machines 'je t1hlH Hev six #1 cinema

So you get a cash card, "'e'"/that, "jaj" from "-jaj" for "may"--that may.
Right.  Who needs grammar?  Just replace words by things the dictionary
says.  This machine-translation stuff is blown waaay out of proportion.
"teq"/remove", and "vo'" is *obviously" a word, not just a prefix, meaning
"from".  "That may remove from 6000 cash machines."  "*'je", obviously a
try for "and".    "tlhIH Hev": "you receive".  Plain as day.  Didn't bother
going for "jav" instead of "six"; I guess they didn't want that info lost.

>vouchers, 'ej other money off vouchers yaj'a'. jaH local TSB 'ej Hev more
>details.

"'ej" is another try for "and".  Oddly, "'ej" would have worked better
where they had "*'je", and "je" would make more sense here (after the
vouchers, of course).  "yaj'a'": from phrasebook, "understood?".  "jaH" is
"go" (to?), obviously imperative, since there's no subject, and *ALL*
languages do that the same, right?   "Hev"/receive more details.

>		   T  S  B

>	      We want YOU to say HISlaH

HISlaH=yes.

>No idea whether the Klingon is correct or not, but thought you might
>be interested.

It isn't.

I suppose I'm unreasonably hard on them.  After all, this advertising stunt
is unique in that it actually expects people to *read* the Klingon, and
even try to puzzle it out, while giving enough of the key words in English
to enable them to glork the meaning from context.  Still it's exasperating.
It's another thing to fight against when we try to convince people that
klingon isn't coded English.

>In the small print it does say copyright 1994 Paramount Pictures

>Colette Reap


Should we forward this to Colette Reap as well?  Or does she not care?

~mark



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