tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Sep 19 10:27:48 1995
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Re: }} 'Smoking', in defense of my sig, and {QaQ}
- From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: }} 'Smoking', in defense of my sig, and {QaQ}
- Date: Tue, 19 Sep 1995 10:27:48 -0400 (EDT)
According to [email protected]:
>
> In a message dated 95-09-15 22:55:36 EDT, you write:
>
> >For "good" meaning the opposite of evil or wicked, I would use {mIghbe'} or
> >{mIghHa'}.
>
> I see a difference between the Verb Suffix Rovers <-be'> and <-Ha'>. To me,
> <-be'> "not having the quality/action of the verb." <-Ha'> means "having a
> misdirected quality/action of the verb."
I see this as one of two usual meanings of {-Ha'}, then other
being a more polar opposite of the verb than {-be'}. In this
instance, {mIghHa'} would mean "good" in the sense of "opposite
of evil", while {mIghbe'} would simply mean "benign" or "not
evil". mIghHa' qeylIS. mighbe' Spock. mIgh Kirk.
The English prefixes "un-" and "dis-" are often applied in
translating {-Ha'}, while the helper word "not" usually covers
{-be'}. Some verbs more naturally lean towards the "mis-" or
the "un-" meanings. For example, to tie most naturally falls
towards to untie, while to understand falls naturally towards
misunderstand. While you can mistie something, this is less
common than untying it, and ununderstanding, as in undoing the
process of understanding, is something that stretches the mind
to even imagine. In both cases, however, the modified word is
the polar opposite of the original verb.
To untie is more of a polar opposite of to tie than to not tie.
To misunderstand is more of a polar opposite of to understand
than to merely not understand. See?
It's like a Venn Diagram with two circles that do not
intersect. The original verb is one circle and the {-Ha'} verb
is the other circle, while {-be'} is all the space not
encompassed by the other two circles. One circle is black, the
other white. Space around them is grey. In this way, I agree
that {-Ha'} and {-be'} are not interchangeable.
> Therefore, I do not think we can loosely interchange Verb+be' and Verb+Ha'.
> I find them to mean different things. I welcome more discussion on this
> perceived difference.
And so, I offer some.
> Meanwhile, I definitely agree with the concept of the above-mentioned snip.
> We do need to see what the English meaning is, nuances and all, and
> translate accordingly. Therefore, very often we will use different words in
> the target language (Klingon) to translate different connotations of the same
> English word.
Meanwhile, I prefer not to focus on translating English words
at all. I prefer to focus on translating the concept behind an
English sentence, paragraph or larger units of thought into
fresh Klingon text, using the full tool set of the language at
its best, rather than awkwardly trying to use the same
grammatical constructions and word matches that any given
English sentence uses, transmogrofied into Klingon.
The meaning of a word varies so much in context that in
translation, one should recognize that the context matters more
than the word. What you REALLY want to translate is the
context. "I hate cigarette smoke." "I hate the man who killed
my father." Do we really want to insist on using the same
Klingon verb for both of these sentences?
> peHruS
charghwI'
--
\___
o_/ \
<\__,\
"> | Get a grip.
` |