tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Mar 05 16:40:36 1995
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Re: TLHINGAN-HOL digest 129
On Sat, 4 Mar 1995 charghwI' wrote:
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 3 Mar 95 12:08:42 EST
> From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: KLBC: E pluribus unum
> Message-ID: <[email protected]>
>
> According to [email protected]:
> >
> > >wa' law'choH moj
> >
> > Look at the simple:
> >
> > law'choH wa' [Doch]
> >
> I CAN'T STAND IT.
Agreed, but for a different reason. This translates as:
"One becomes many"
Which is what is intended.
>
> wa' qum mojchoH qum law'.
Interesting. I hate to question you on grammar (for the same reason I
would hate to question Laura D'Andrea Tyson on economics) but shouldn't
that be:
wa' qum lumoj law'bogh qum(mey).
"The government which is many becomes one goverment" or
"The governments which are many become one government"
Hm..., maybe not. Looking back at TKD, law' is mighty irregular. For
example, the main use in TKD is in comparatives where it goes in what
would seem to be the wrong place:
A Q law' B Q puS -- but if we take law' (v) to be many and puS (v) to be few,
this should be:
law' A Q 'ej pus B Q
since the "Q of A" and "Q of B" are the subjects of their clauses. Is
there any justification for extending this grammatical inversion outside
of comparatives?
Another thing: isn't the suffix -choH redundant with the verb moj? Or
wouldn't it imply something like "starting to become"? For example, if I
said:
jItaQchoH "I am becoming weird, I am starting to be weird"
ghojwI' tlhIngan Hol jImoj "I am becoming a student of the Klingon language"
ghojwI' tlhIngan Hol jImojchoH "I am starting to become (just becoming?) a
student of the Klingon language"
I think, also, that your translation loses some of the connotation of
the original -- it implies, IMO, more than just a merging of governments
but of people as well, if specificity as to exact topic is needed, I think:
wa' qo' moj law'bogh qo'
But maybe I'm reading the implication of "qo'" wrongly -- I'm not using
it in the sense of "world" but "realm" which I think has more the flavor
of a nation or polity than "qum" does. But that type of realm may be
outside the meaning of "qo'" and TKD doesn't make that clear...
Perhaps:
wa' ghom rewbe'pu' lumoj law'bogh ghommey rewbe'pu'
But I don't think that, as a motto, the specificity is needed, I think:
wa lumoj law'wI'
is a perfectly fine motto.
> Don't EVER translate something you don't understand.
'e' yIlob
>
> charghwI'
> --
ghojwI'
Oh, and how do you get OUT OF digest mode?