tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Nov 08 07:40:20 1996

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Re: Sun Tzu's "The Art of War"



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>Date: Thu, 7 Nov 1996 14:15:44 -0800
>From: [email protected] (JEFF ZEITLIN)
>
> I am beginning an attempt at translating Sun Tzu's "The Art of
> War" into <<tlhIngan Hol>>.  Samuel Griffith, whose translation

Yow.  I hope you're not biting off too much.  But it looks like you're
starting small with it, and that's good.

> Griffith:
>
> War is a matter of vital importance to the State; the province
> of life or death; the road to survival or ruin. It is mandatory
> that it be thoroughly studied.
>
> <<tlhIngan Hol>>:
>
> veS SaHqu' wo'. yIn Hegh je SaH veS 'ej tlhab je QIH SaH.
> yIHaghqu'!
>
> Back-translation:
>
> The empire is very concerned with war.  War is concerned with
> life and death, and it is concerned with freedom and
> destruction. Study it well!

SaH is a pretty good verb at least for the first sentence, but you might
want to consider "qel" as well for some of the other sentences; it may work
well.  Hrm, is *either* any good for what war does to life and death?  I
tend to think of "qel" as "deal with" which would make it okay, but that's
not what the dictionary says.  You might also look at "potlh" and other
phrasings.

I thought you misused "tlhab", but you're right: it is a noun also.  But
the conjunction "je" should come *after* QIH and not between the nouns.

"Hagh" is "laugh"; you meant "HaD."  That's an unfortunate typo. :)

~mark

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