tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Dec 29 13:16:08 1995
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Re: An attempted Klingon Poem :-)
- From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: An attempted Klingon Poem :-)
- Date: Fri, 29 Dec 1995 16:16:04 -0500 (EST)
- In-Reply-To: <[email protected]> from "Astrid Jekat" at Dec 23, 95 05:59:50 am
According to Astrid Jekat:
>
> Greetings!
>
> I read the following bit of poetry in a ST novel...
>
> Darkness will come.
> ghoS ram.
>
> (There is no real future tense in tlhIngan Hol, so I put everything
> in the present tense. Would the verb suffixes -lI' or -taH express a
> future aspect?)
There is no future aspect as such, but a time setting will
usually convey this. Unfortunately the original does not tell
us what degree of future is implied. "Darkness will come," may
mean many different things. You have to decide which more
certain message is intended.
tugh paw ram.
wej paw ram, 'ach pawbej ram.
paw ram 'e' vIpIHbej.
paw ram net narghlaHbe'.
loSlu'chugh paw ram.
reH qaSchugh pem vaj pawlI' ram.
[That one is a good Klingon proverb, I think.]
> Enemies will surround us from all sides.
> nuDechqu' jaghpu'.
You might consider {nuDechchu'}.
> Their swords are more numerous than the trees of the forest.
> etlh'meychaj mI' law' ngem Sormey mI' puS.
{mI'} is a NOUN, not a stative verb. This doesn't work at all.
{'etlhmeychaj law' law' ngem Sormey law' puS.}
> We will wear faces of fire.
> qul qabDu' matuQ.
That's {wItuQ}.
> (I used tuQ = to wear clothing on purpose. I *think* this is
> not taking poetic expression too far. Would qabDu' meq be a better
> way of putting " faces of fire"?)
Consider a more complete recasting, like:
qul rur qabDu'maj.
The point is that you want to have the same MEANING as the
original, not the same words.
> taj'IH
charghwI'
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