tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Nov 28 09:20:10 1994

Back to archive top level

To this year's listing



[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]

Re: KBGC: Christmas chuS



>Date: Fri, 25 Nov 1994 15:50:36 -0500
>Originator: [email protected]
>From: Heidi Wessman <[email protected]>

>I lost my list of religious words in a system mega-crash.  I know the 
>words I need exist (except for one, maybe).  tuQaHlaH'a'?

Well, if not exist, at least there are some conventional near-synonyms for
them out there...

I don't recall if the BG handled this already, and if so I hope I'm not
stepping on toes too much.  Just a few comments...

>BTW, I attempted translation of something a little simpler.  How did I 
>do?  maj?  qab?  nuq?

Simple is almost always better.

>Oh Holy Night

>Oh Holy Night
>[This night is holy]
><be holy> ramvam

How about {quv}/be honored for "holy"?  I think that's one of the words
commonly used.

>The stars are brightly shining
>[Stars are shining]
>bochchu'taH Hovmey

Probably OK, but I tend to think of "boch" as more like what polished
silver does than what a burning light-bulb does.  I may have no basis for
this belief (aside from "be shiny" as the gloss).  You can also use "wov".

>It is the night of our dears Savior's birth.
>[Our dear Savior is(was) born that night]
>ramvetlh bogh toDwI'ma'voy

Hokay, we have time-phrase here.  Once again, there's the question of how
to handle it.  It's pretty much accepted that at least some time-phrases
(like DaHjaj) can be used adverbially with no marking.  The question is,
which ones can't (and must use a qaStaHvIS construction).  I'm inclined to
say that this one should use qaStaHvIS ramvetlh, since, after all, we have
"qaStaHvIS wa' ram" in the canon.

There's no suffix "*-voy".  I think you're trying for the
endearment/diminuative suffix "-oy", which would fit, I guess... but I must
point out that to me that dsounds like calling Jesus "our little
saviorkins", which somehow doesn't seem quite right to my ear.  Then again,
I'm not Christian; maybe it works better for someone else.

>Long lay the words in sing and error pining
>[due to it's mistakes, the world suffers]
>bech qo' QaghmeyDajmo'

Hmm... maybe bechtaH, to prolong it?

>Till he appeared
>[The Savior appeared]
>nargh toDwI'

Go for "narghpa' toDwI'"; the -pa' suffix doesn't get much use, and it's
really helpful.  Here, it works nicely to show "until": The world suffered
for its sins *before* the savior appeared.

>And the soul felt it's worth.
>[and souls became worthy]
>'ej lo'laHchoH <soul>pu'

I know "lo'laH" is listed as its own entry, but I maintain that in general,
words that are obviously constructions are just that: constructions, which
Okrand helpfully listed separately to help out the English reader who
otherwise might not have thought of how to put together the right elements.
In which case, the word has to be "lo'choHlaH", whatever the meaning (yes,
I know that seems to change the meaning.  It doesn't really, and tough.)
-laH is a type 5 verb suffix, and -choH is a type 3.

We have "spirit" from PK as "qa'".  And I, like you, treat "qa'" (in
general) as a sentient noun, using "-pu'" and phrases like "qa'wI'", etc.

>A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices
>[due to hope, the world rejoices, <un>tired]
>tullaHmo' lopqo', Doy'Ha'

You mean "because it can hope", right?  You could just use "tulmo'":
because it hopes.  Or even "tulchoHmo'".  Remember, "-mo'" is a verb suffix
too.

Obviously, it should be "lop qo'"; two words.

Bear in mind that Klingon "adjectives" don't function like English ones.
To me, your sentence reads "because it can hope, the world celebrates, it
is un-tired".  The English use you have in your translation is as a
participle, maning closer to "while it is untired" which would need a
-taHvIS construction.  The way you have it makes sense... but not
necessarily precisely the way you intended.

>for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn
>[when dawn comes, tomorrow is new, tomorrow is glorious]
>jajlo' chu' wa'leS, qur wa'leS

"qur" is greedy, not glorious.  Ferengi might conflate those concepts... :)
Try "pov" or "Dun".  Again, what to do with the noun of time?  Here, too,
I'm tempted to recommend qaSDI' jajlo'.

>Fall on your knees
>qIvDu'raj yIpem

qIvDu'rajDaq pepem (using -raj, you're obviously addressing more than one
person).  Better still, {petorchoH}.

>Oh hear the angels' voices
>[hear the voices of messengars]
><angel/messengar>pu' ghogh yIQoy
>(Either Angel or Messengar could work here... but I couldn't find 
>*anything* in the dictionary which came close...)

Think about "Duy" or "'oSwI'".  Possibly yI'Ij for "listen to".

>Oh night divine
>the night is divine
><be divine> ram
>(would "the night is holy" need to be substituted?)

You could use quv[qu'] ram... or Dun or pov or whatever...

>Oh night, when Christ was born
>bogh QrISt ghorgh ram

Ugh.  This is the ship-in-which-I-fled problem, smack in the face.  We
don't know a good way to handle this: {ram} is neither the subject nor the
object of the relative clause... for that matter, if anything, it's part of
a [possibly implied] qaSDI' clause, which doesn't help at all.  For that
matter, you didn't use a relatoive clause at all, which confusees me
further.  Oh, I see what you're trying to do.  Um, don't.  "ghorgh" is not
a relative pronoun, so far as we can tell.  It's a question-word, that's
it.  Your sentence makes no sense to me, sorry... How about "qaStaHvIS
ramvelth bogh *Christ*", avoiding the whole relative clause thing" on that
night, Christ was born.  And leave it at that.  If you realy want to do it
as a noun-pphrase, it could get messy.

Oh, and regarrding the transliteration... I won't hassle you for
transliterating too much... but it is true that teh convention of the list
is not to transliterate except in cases like theKBTP where it's important
that everything be in Klingon.  This is because otherwise you have poor
souls out there frantically flipping through TKD's after words that aren't
there.  At the very least, flag transliterations with *'s or quotes.
Beyond that, there's the question of *how* to transliterate.  I, for one,
don't like seeing transliterations that break the phonology of Klingon as
we understand it.  A word like "*QrISt", for all that it's written in
pretty upper/lower case, would stick out like a sore thumb to a Klingon
reader (it does to me).  No known Klingon word begins with a
consonant-cluster; the initial "kr" is usually best transliterated as just
"Q" anyway.  And the only final consonant-clusters we've seen are "-rgh",
"-w'", and "-y'".  If you're presuming some standard transcription of
famous names into Klingon, they'd probably transcribe them according to
their own language's phonetics, like we have Isaac and Joel and Job and
Ezekiel and Moses (due to translations into various languages, conforming
to their structures) instead of Yitzchak, Yo'el, 'Iyov, Y'chezkel, and
Moshe.


>-------------------
>chuQun

Hey, happy caroling...

~mark


Back to archive top level