tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Oct 21 19:35:10 1999

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Re: deciphering taHjaj wo', is this correct?



>From: [email protected]
>Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1999 14:40:45 EDT
>

Correct for the most part; a little problem with vocabulary once or twice,
and some word-order problems.  The word-order stuff caused you to
mistranslate, say, a sentence as a noun-phrase.  It didn't wind up changing
the meaning too badly, so one could argue it was just your idiomatic
recasting of the sentence.  Nobody said a translation had to follow
precisely the grammatical structure of the source language (it's not
possible most of the time).

Boy the formatting was off.

>may the empire endure                                                         

>       may the empire endure      
>       and may our emperor endure                   
>       because we serve him                         
>       so may he honors us       

"So may the emperor honor us".  Remember {ta'} means "emperor" too.
                 
>       it's our great empire              

Word-order here.  This is a sentence: "Our empire is great."

>       and if anybody disagrees      
>       then we'll #%&*@+ stomp 
>       them flat under our boots!

Essentially, yes.  Literally, "we will flatten them", but your translation
is better.

>     may endure     

This is sort of echoing the first phrase, so I guess this is right; in
isolation I'd read it as "may it endure"... The fact is you're really just
accompanying the first verse here.

>  may 
>the empire endure and may we endure! 
>   may 
>our enemies suffer;may they die! 
>    we serve  
>                                                                             
>know that we serve undoubtedly, know that! 

"We definitely serve; everyone knows that, everyone knows that".  Well,
"everyone" isn't quite there, more like "that's [well-]known".

>our excellent emperor is clever and fair!                                  
>great empire

Again, a sentence: "our empire is great"

>            our great empire,good home,will never collapse                    

This is the vocabulary problem; "maj" is an exclamation, "-maj" is a
possessive suffix.  "Our empire, our home, is great; it will never
collapse."

>        if disagree                                                           
>                    if anyone is undoubtedly foolish to disagree!

Sounds like you tried to translate idiomatically and got a little lost.
"If anyone disagrees, they are definitely very foolish."  (or
idiomatically, "anyone would definitely be very foolish to disagree.")

>                  we'll #%&*@+ stomp them under our boots!

As above.
         
>                                                                              
>                       we don't need to eat,we don't need to drink,and if we 
>are lucky,we don't need to breath                                             
>                          we only need to serve the mighty Klingon empire     

Literally, "the only thing which we need to do is the serving of the mighty
Klingon Empire."  Which is why you translated it as you did.  This is not a
correction; your translation is right and better than the literal one.

>                   in great battles,in great wars,and always in great 
>victories                   we achieve success and honor and we proclaim the 
>Klingon Empire is superior                                           

Literally, "we proclaim the superiority of the Klingon empire".  Again,
you're fine.
         
>                          we are ready to serve,we can fight,if necessary we 
>are willing to die but because we are likely to kill the enemy first don't 
>expect to die well

I think you missed it a little here.

"we are perfectly ready to serve, we are perfectly able to fight, we are
perfectly willing to die, if it is necessary, because it is necessary; but
do not expect our deaths, because we will likely kill [lit. cause-to-die]
the *enemy* first."

>                            so may the empire endure,so may the empire 
>endure,from the Klingon home world to the edge of the universe                
>                    may the Klingon Empire endure!                            
>                  comments from anyone would be appreciated .                 

Sounds like you pretty much captured the meaning.

~mark


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