tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Dec 31 10:22:12 1999

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Re: Man-of-war and song translations (was Re: a young Warrior)

jatlh S'Qal:


>as a huge ManOwaR fan, and someone who has been working on translating some
>of their songs for about the last six weeks, i felt the need to comment on
>the two previous posts about this subject.
>
>A) i'm not really sure what HovqIj said in the second post (my klingon
>reading skills still being a little rusty), so i can't comment on that one,
>and only hope i don't say the same thing.

Well... partially :-) You seem to have a lot more background information,
though.

What I said was:
I am confused that "man-of-war" means "warship", 'cause I haven't heard any
Manowar songs that referred to ships in any way. Since Manowar like to call
themselves "warriors" I expected the band name was to be taken literally,
thus "Manowar" = "man of war" = "warrior".
And then I stated with many words that a translation (of a song, book,
movie... ) is always different form the original, not necessarily worse,
though. I also thought of "Heart Of Steel" / "Herz Aus Stahl" as an example
when I wrote that.
Even in English it's hard for me to find the right words, but a translation
always _feels_ different. I mean it sounds different, the words don't have
exactly the same meaning, some passages have to be changed completely,
different grammar causes small (or big) changes... the whole atmosphere
chnges.

>
>B) as for the post by ghunchu'wI', i do have a couple of things to say.
>firstly, i don't think a tlhIngan translation of "man-of-war" {veSDuj}
would
>be entirely appropriate here, as in this case, the term "ManOwaR" does in
>fact refer to a person (the band's faceless 'mascot' who has appeared on
>every album cover between Fighting the World and Hell On Stage Live, as
well
>as all of their shirts and posters throughout the same period), and to a
>group of people (the band themselves).

yay!!! vaj jIlughba'. DujlIj yIvoq!

>as such, the connotations of using
>the term ManOwaR are different than using the term "man-of-war". as with
>terrangan, verengan and cardaSangan (sp?), a transliteration of 'ManOwaR'
>would (in my view) be more accurate.
>secondly, i do not believe the language differences or the fact that we are
>talking about songs make much of a difference. sure it will be hard, and
>some grammatical/semantic changes may need to be made in order to preserve
>the rythym of the original version, but is that not where the joys and
>challenges of translation lay?

Changes, yes, that's all I was talking about. choHmoHwI' ghaH mughwI''e'.

>if you wish to see just how versatile translated versions of songs can be,
>listen to the song "Herz Aus Stahl", which is a german translation of the
>original english "Heart Of Steel", one of ManOwaR's greatest songs. it was
>done originally in english by the band, translated into german by a friend
>of theirs, Marcus Ott, then recorded by the band, in german, to the
original
>music. some changes are noticeable, as some of the ideas in the english
>version can't be translated literally while maintaining the song's rythym,
>but the band obviously felt that the changes did not take away from the
>impact or power (or meaning) of the song.

choHmey'e' Daqelqa'.

>
>the two versions of the song are available on Kings Of Metal (english
>version) and every live bootleg that is available as well as their official
>live album Hell On Stage Live; and on The Hell of Steel (german version) as
>well as (i think) their second collection, Anthology. comparing the two
>versions will show just how successful the venture was.

qabbe' <Herz Aus Stahl>. <Heart Of Steel> vImaS, 'ach qabbe' <Herz Aus
Stahl> 'ej Dajbej .

>
>-S'Qal-
>
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HovqIj

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