tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Mar 19 22:32:13 2001
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Re: KLBC: Patience makes perfect
Thanks to everyone for their comments on this subject. Grammar is easier
than vocabulary. All of those words--mahayana, buddha, boddhisatva, dharma,
sangha--mean something (great vehicle, awakened one, and so forth) so there
should be perfectly good Klingon words for them; such as {vem'eghmoHtaHwI'}
for Awakened One. Bodhisattva will be difficult. Also, there does not seem
to be a word for monk, but I will deal with that eventually by finding a
perfectly good Klingon word to express the meaning.
Regarding {QIng}, I see now that Dr. Okrand may yet present that word and
give a meaning for it; quite beyond the problem which Qov pointed out that
others would not understand the word in the first place. The fact that I
could not find it in any the vocabularies I have at hand means nothing. On
the other hand, Tao could mean path. Therefore, the Klingon word I was
looking for might be {He} for course/route. Having a grasp of vocabulary is
quite important--not to minimize the importance of grammar.
Regarding patience; it is too soon to translate difficult works such as Tao
Te Ching or Buddhist teachings without an adequate grasp of Klingon
language. Simply changing the words perfection of patience into something
that is merely grammatically correct yet sounds odd to a Klingon is not good
enough.
Regarding names; I was going to ask about the naming procedure until I
located the appropriate comments in the FAQ at the KLI web site.
Regarding my name; the original exercise (between myself and a freind) was
to develop Jedi names based on Klingon language. My friend is not interested
in Klingon per se, but wanted a hyphenated first name followed by another
name. I devised {pagh-le'} for myself, but my friend did not like any of the
suggestions that I made for him. With your indulgence, I would keep
{pagh-le'} for myself if I can spell my name any way I want.
Klingon Jedi? Well, not exactly. But I have written a story in which the
monks (so-to-speak) each carry {HoS'ethl} or light sabre.
~pagh-le'
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lwaxana Troi/Arania Lawakiro" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, March 19, 2001 3:57 PM
Subject: Re: KLBC: Patience makes perfect
> > I also read Pagh-le' mail. You will inevitably have to include
non-klingon
> > words as terms like mahayana, buddha, boddhisatva, dharma, sangha are
> > practically untranslatable. You might be best off transliterating these
> > words and then explaining them, which is how English translators of
> > Buddhism work. Rather than coining new terms.
> >
> Why would those not be translatable? I agree it would sound bad, as it
does in
> German, hence we hardly do use translated versions, but it should work for
the
> most of them.
>
> JaHinTa'