tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Oct 22 20:05:21 1995
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Re: HolQeD 4:3 p4 S7
- From: [email protected] (Alan Anderson)
- Subject: Re: HolQeD 4:3 p4 S7
- Date: Sun, 22 Oct 1995 22:05:04 -0500
Skybox card S7:
>{DujvamDaq 'op SuvwI' tu'lu'bogh po' law' tlhIngan yo' SuvwI' law' po' puS}
Me:
> "The {'op} warrior which one finds on this ship is more skilled than
> the many Klingon fleet's warrior[s]."
>
> First, what in the world is {'op}?! Second, it looks like {SuvwI' law'}
> is intended to mean "many of the warriors," and that doesn't seem right.
charghwI':
>Remember that Klingon does not use articles like "the", so
>while it is right to place them in the English translation in
>order to make the sentence sound right, it is not ALWAYS right
>to do so. If you drop "the" from your English translation, you
>probably won't object to:
>
>The {'op} warrior which one finds on this ship is more skilled
>than many warriors of the Klingon fleet.
As it happens, I still DO object to that translation. Let's look at
the phrase which bothers me, in isolation: {tlhIngan yo' SuvwI' law'}
Word-for-word translation gives "Klingon fleet warrior be-many", and
I think it should mean "many warriors of the fleet of the Klingons".
Note the "many warriors" -- in English, that might mean the same as
"many of the warriors", but in Klingon, I think it can only be used
to mean the number of warriors is large. The intended meaning, from
the Skybox card translation, appears to be the "partive" interpretation
of the English "many warriors". We usually handle this in Klingon with
a noun-noun phrase, and THAT is what doesn't seem right with the card.
-- ghunchu'wI' batlh Suvchugh vaj batlh SovchoH vaj