tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Jun 23 07:56:24 1998

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Re: DS9 Finale Kl;ingon

:qaSDI' 01:09 PM 6/22/98 -0700, ghItlh Katie:
: >SuSvaj wrote:
: >> I've run through the scene a few times, and this is the best transcription
: >> I can make.
: >>     neHtaH Qo'noS 'ej betleH Hu' HoHneS maH.
: >>     neHtaH Qo'noS yay je betleH maHno'
: >
: >Here's a literal translation in Klingon order. Can someone fix this so
: >it's more understandable. I haven't reversed the order. So this is
: >literaly a literal translation.
: >  Forever Qo'noS and betleh "days ago/get up" kill with honor we.
: >  Forever Qo'noS victory also betleh our ancestors.
: 
: Actually <reH> is forever, not <neH>.  <neH> means "to want".  It looks
: like the writer may have been trying to say something like
:   "Kronos wants us to pick up the batleth so that we can kill honorably."  
: It looks like they might have used <Hu'> meaning "get up" to say "pick up."
: If so, it's quite wrong, but no surprise there.  We can probably write the
: whole thing off as no' Hol.
: 
: SuSvaj

True, but what was it supposed to be?  Before we argue further over the
grammar (or lack thereof), let's see what the actual text was.  Last night I
taped the rerun and transcribed the closed captions.  These are:

     NEH TAH KRONOS.
     HEGH BAT'LHQU HOCH NEJ MAH.
     NEH TAH KRONOS.
     YAY JE BAT'LH MANOB HEGH.

Four separate lines.  This is apparently verse, though it wasn't identified
as such in the story.  Is it an extract from a death chant?  Worf's favorite
battle song?  A quotation from Kahless?  Dax's favorite historical epic?
Worf didn't say and Sisko didn't ask him.

Note that it is a *bit* better than the total gibberish the writers usually
make up.  If you noticed, Michael Dorn seemed to be trying to carefully say
the lines - at least, to get them right as they were in the script.  Someone
obviously was trying to translate a bit of poetry using The Klingon
Dictionary but used English syntax in places.  If {manob} means "we give",
then s/he found the table of verb prefixes, but didn't understand how the
subject-object prefixes work.  So, if we want to give this any more thought,
I suggest we try to reconstruct the underlying English original and then
re-translate it into correct tlhIngan Hol.

To get us started, "BAT'LH" and "BAT'LHQU" probably refer to {batlh}
"honor", not {betleH} "bat'leth".  Dorn simply pronounced it like
"bat-tuhl".  Words with /tlh/ always confuse actors.

Voragh
 
_____________________________________________________________________
Steven Boozer   University of Chicago Library   [email protected]

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