tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Mar 04 08:35:48 1998

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Re: KLBC: lengwI' yIn

ja' Edy:
>One of our tradicional songs. Of course, I have to adapt some words
>to the lyric. I tried to translate the idea without keep the original terms
>and expressions.

I'm starting to think you're doing this on purpose to torture me! :-)

Edy, stop it.  Stop translating things into Klingon.  Stop taking 
other people's words and rewriting them.  You're running into problems
you don't need, and you aren't finding the parts of the language that 
you *do* need help with.

Start writing your *own* words.  Compose sentences from your *own* 
thoughts.  You'll learn more that way.

I'll give this a brief look, but I won't analyze it in detail.  Songs 
and poetry often don't translate well even if the translator speaks 
both source and target languages like a native; he often needs to be a
skilled *poet* in both languages too.

>    lengwI' yIn

This means "the traveller's life".  Is that what it's supposed to be?

>roj jIloSmeH* qo'Daq yIt SanwIj
>* roj jIloSmeH - "in order to rest in peace". I think it can mean "in order
>to rest the peace" which does not make sense. I know that Qov doesn't
>like to use -Daq in words that doesn't indicates physical location, so
>I didn't use {rojDaq}

{roj jIloSmeH} doesn't mean anything much.  You have implied that you 
don't think "rest in peace" is talking about a physical location.  So
what *do* you think it means?  You're falling short of your goal of 
not using the original terms and expressions if you keep the words 
"rest" and "peace" here.

If you really meant "...my fate walks in the world", fine.  But I 
don't understand it.

>Hovmey vISuchbogh chavmey vIpoltaH

"I am keeping the achievements of the stars which I visit."  It's 
grammatical, but I don't know what it means.

>qo'Daq jIyIttaH 'ej Dat vIlonnISbogh jupwI'mey vIqaw'taH

{qo'Daq jIyIttaH} "I am walking in the world" is okay, but the second 
sentence is almost too wrong for me to guess at the meaning.

"my friends whom I must abandon" is {juppu'wI' vIlonnISbogh}.  There 
are several problems with the way you said it:

1) The object-verb-subject order applies to clauses as well as
sentences, so the object "my friends" comes before the verb. 

2) Type 2 plural suffixes come before Type 4 possessive ones.  {-mey} 
is okay if you want to imply that your friends are scattered all over;
otherwise use {-pu'} for people.  I'm not sure whether {Dat} was meant
to apply to the "abandon" or the "remember", but using it along with a
{-mey} plural seems redundant.

3) There's no verb {qaw'}.  Did you mean {qaw} "remember" or {Qaw'} 
"destroy"?

>SIS peD Hovpugh(1) ghap
>(1) Stardust

Sentence conjunctions ('ej, pagh, qoj) come between the sentences they
are joining.  I won't comment one way or another on your coined word.

>juHwIjvo' jIHopvIS vaj tengchaHDaq latlh De' jIghoSmo' jIQuchqu'

The verb suffix {-vIS} is always accompanied by the suffix {-taH}, so 
you have to say {jIHoptaHvIS} "while I am being remote".

{vaj} looks very out of place as an adverbial "thus", so I interpret 
{vaj tengchaHDaq} as "in a warrior's space station".  Is that right?

{latlh De'} is just sitting there with no obvious connection to 
anything else in the sentence.  If you want it to be the object of
{ghoS}, you need the verb prefix {vI-}, not {jI-}.

I can't figure out what you're trying to say.

>bIQtIq puH muD tuj muD bIr ghap

"either river, land, hot air, or cold air" is a noun phrase without a 
verb to make it a sentence.  Are you trying to translate "heat" and 
"cold" again?

>jIHagh je jIQuch 'ach Dat vIlonnISbogh jupwI'mey vIqaw'DI' jIQuchbe'choH

{je} comes after nouns to join them.  You want {'ej} to join the first
two sentences.  The {Dat...vIqaw'DI'} sentence has the same problems 
here as it did before.  {jIQuchbe'choH} seems to say "I stop being
happy".  If you wanted to say "I become unhappy" you should use
{jIQuchHa'choH}.

Your use of {-DI'} and {-choH} here is very good, by the way.  Now try
using them in a sentence *you* created.

Edy, do you hear me?  Tell us about Carnival while it's still fresh in
your head.  Describe what *you* saw and did.

-- ghunchu'wI' mogh

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