tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Nov 09 20:34:48 1996
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Re: Sun Tzu's "The Art of War"
- From: [email protected] (JEFF ZEITLIN)
- Subject: Re: Sun Tzu's "The Art of War"
- Date: Sat, 09 Nov 96 23:24:00 -0500
- Organization: Execnet Information System - 914-667-4567 - 206.181.98.136
- References: <[email protected]>
::>> I am beginning an attempt at translating Sun Tzu's "The Art of
::>> War" into <<tlhIngan Hol>>. Samuel Griffith, whose translation
T::>Yow. I hope you're not biting off too much. But it looks like you're
::>starting small with it, and that's good.
I realized that any book like this might turn out to be a big
job; that's one of the reasons I chose Sun Tzu rather than
Machiavelli - Sun Tzu was broken up naturally into "bite-sized"
chunks, which I could pick and choose from, and work my way up.
I also decided to eliminate the commentary by Griffith and
later generals; that cut down the size of the job as well.
T::>> 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!
T::>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.
Yes, janSiy wrote me privately and mentioned a couple of
alternatives. He (she?) felt that <<SaH>> was weak for all of
them, and recommended <<potlh>> for the first sentence - making
it <<wo'vaD potlhqu' veS>>, "War is very important to the
empire". The biggest problem I see with the big compound
sentence is that almost any verb I choose will be
"anthropomorphising" war to some extent. Without some severe
convincing, I think I'll follow janSiy's suggestion, and go
with <<wuq>>.
T::>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.
Yes, I spotted this one myself.
T::>"Hagh" is "laugh"; you meant "HaD." That's an unfortunate typo. :)
Yes, and it's one that is replicated from p48 of TKD (the
second edition - white cover, with the addendum). I was looking
up the prefixes and suffixes I wanted for a verb I hadn't
looked up yet, so I was reading the appropriate section - and
found an example that purported to say exactly what I was
looking for, so I lifted it without checking the glossary in
the back...
Anyway, the revised translation now reads: <<wo'vaD potlhqu'
veS. yIn Hegh je wuq veS 'ej tlhab QIH je wuq. yIHaDqu'.>>
(I can just see someone issuing the command: "Laugh hard at
it!") {{:)
==========================================================================
Jeff Zeitlin [email protected]
---
� OLXWin 1.00b � Reality crept in. I nailed it for tresspassing.