tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Mar 21 21:20:21 2001
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Re: KLBC: Patience makes perfect
>> ...terms like mahayana, buddha, boddhisatva, dharma, sangha are
>> practically untranslatable...
ja' JaHinTa:
>Why would those not be translatable?
Many such terms are literally translated in English by something having the
form of "one who is <verb>ed", which doesn't have a simple counterpart in
Klingon. It wants to employ two conflicting concepts. The Klingon
grammatical tools at our disposal do include a "one who is" suffix {-wI'},
which makes a derived noun out of the subject of a verb, but the closest
thing to the passive voice of "is <verb>ed" is the "indefinite subject"
suffix {-lu'}, which effectively says that the verb has no subject worth
considering.
The terms can certainly be described in as much detail as necessary, but
they cannot easily be translated.
-- ghunchu'wI' 'utlh