tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Oct 13 18:36:12 1995
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Re: To be or not to be(How do you say this?)
On Fri, 13 Oct 1995, James W. Thompson wrote:
> wa'DIch Post
>
>
> Hello My name is J.W. Thompson.
> This is my first post and I have one question that has been
> bugging me for a long time. I've always wanted to know how you say, in
> Klingon, "To be or not to be" and also "We need breathing room!".
Welcome to the list!
The quote "To be or not to be" was translated in the movie ST VI, The
Undiscovered Country as {taH pagh taHbe'}. Note that Klingon does not
actually have a word meaning "to be", so Marc Okrand was chagrined when
he was asked to translate the phrase for the movie. His original
suggestion was {yIn pagh yInbe'} but Christopher Plummer thought that
{yIn} didn't sound "Klingon enough" so he invented the verb {taH} on the
spot.
A literal translation might be something like {matlhuHmeH yoD wIpoQ.} (We
need an area in order to breathe.) But "breathing room" is really an idiom
whose meaning may not be understood by a native Klingon. The meaning of
the phrase might be better conveyed by something like {SachmeH qo'maj, puH
wIpoQ} (We require land in order for our realm to expand.)
yoDtargh