tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Oct 18 19:02:20 1999
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Re: Eternal Life...
>Date: Mon, 18 Oct 1999 09:30:08 -0500
>From: Steven Boozer <[email protected]>
>
>qurgh wrote:
>: I'm trying to find out a way to translate the phrase "Eternal life". The
>: context is that of a biblical one. ie, Through me you will have eternal
>: life. I thought of what it means, but can't translate those, ie never
>: stopping life, never ending life..
>
>~mark:
>: jubtaHghach? I'm not generally a fan of mechanically inserting -taH to
>: make -ghach work, but it makes sense here.
>
>DujHoD:
>: The first thing that comes to mind is:
>: not mevbogh yIn — life that never ends
>
>SuSvaj:
>: Alternately: reH taHbogh yIn or not mevbogh yIn
>
>Though accurate, these are awfully clumsy.
>
>Why does it have to be a noun anyway? Because it's so in the source text?
>Only a novice translator tries to translate everything literally--noun for
>noun, verb for verb, etc. Play to Klingon's strong points and recast the
>sentence:
>
> jIHmo' reH bIyIntaH.
This is certainly the most powerful version of the lot... assuming that's
what the questioner wanted translated. I didn't know it was "I will grant
you eternal life"; all I had was "eternal life", as a noun. Which I
suppose I should have refused to answer and demanded more context.
Isolated phrases don't translate for beans.
~mark