tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Nov 24 08:45:27 1997
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Re: Translating
- From: "Mark E. Shoulson" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Translating
- Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 11:45:25 -0500 (EST)
- In-reply-to: <[email protected]> (message from m109 onFri, 7 Nov 1997 06:18:05 -0800 (PST))
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>Date: Fri, 7 Nov 1997 06:18:05 -0800 (PST)
>From: m109 <[email protected]>
>
>I suppose it all has to do with what side of the fence you are on about
>this. As in the KLI's Bible Translation Project there are 'Literalists',
>who want things translated as they are, and 'Idiomists' (for want of a
>better word), who insert little Klingon phrases and idioms that invoke
>the same meanings as what they are trying to bring across.
>I must admit to being an Idiomist as I like what Klingon can add to
>Shakespeare's original plays.
Indeed, this was part of the schism in the Bible Translation Project. The
sense of KBTP (at least my sense) was to try to provide a translation of
the Bible suitable for a putative Klingon scholar to study, in order to
understand some of Terran culture better. It's what Klingons study in
their Alien Cultures classes in college, etc. So it makes a lot of
non-klingon references with lots of asterisks to explain why anyone would
find the various arguments and ideas interesting or compelling, since the
readers are of a different culture. Only the most Terran-obsessed Klingon,
one who was completely emamored of all things Earthy, would find much
spiritual enlightenment in such a book: it would be more literature than
anything else, like when I studied sacred texts of other religions in my
classes.
Some translators, notably Glen Proechel, tried for a different approach.
- From what I've seen of his work (and his writing outside the translation,
and talking to him for that matter), he's going more for what a missionary
to Qo'noS would have in order to fire up Klingons with religious zeal and
convert them to follow the religion. Or alternatively an attempt at what
the Bible might have looked like had it been a native Klingon book and
story. This is a more idiomatic approach, involving transforming concepts
and narrative into more culturally appropriate ideas rather than
translating the concepts and representing the original (Terran) culture to
notional Klingon students of Terra.
Personally, I rather like keeping the Bible translation more on the
Literalist track, since after all, the Bible really isn't culturally very
Klingon, and to make it so seems like mutating it out of what it is. I
really like the idea of a scholarly, and not religious, treatment and
translation of that text. Some of this may be ue to the fact that I am
Jewish, and the idea of translating the Bible into a tool of missionarism
runs counter to my own religion, and generally seems overly Christian and
not conducive to religious pluralism. That's just me, though. However, I
also rather like the Idiomist approach to Shakespeare, if only because we
have the conceit from the movie that the plays were "originally" Klingon.
I don't see much conflict with the inconsistency of treating one text one
way and another another way, myself, but I imagine some do.
~mark
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