tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Oct 15 11:26:13 2001
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RE: tu'lu'pu'be'bogh Hatlh
ro'Han:
| How can I say "The Undiscovered Country"? Is the way I chose in
| the subject line OK, or a bit complex?
charghwI':
> wo' tu'lu'pu'be'bogh.
One small suggestion: {-pu'} can probably be safely omitted here:
wo' tu'lu'be'bogh
Although translating The Undiscovered Country as a perfective - "the empire
which has not been discovered" - is certainly literally correct, I think it
makes the phrase a bit long and clumsy. The perfective sense in such {-bogh}
phrases is sometimes provided by context, particularly when used with {-lu'}.
E.g.:
to'baj 'uS lughoDlu'bogh
stuffed tobbaj legs PK
Obviously, the stuffing has to be completed before you can eat them. The focus
here may be on stuffing {ghoD} rather than some other form of preparation, not
its completion.
reH boch qutluch lo'lu'bogh
The used kut'luch is always shiny. TKW
"The kut'luch which is used"; a perfective translation is also possible:
{qutluch lo'lu'pu'bogh} "the kut'luch which has been used".
On the other hand we have:
boqrat chej Qevlu'pu'bogh
stewed bokrat liver
(lit. "bokrat liver that has been stewed") KGT
Soj vutlu'pu'bogh
food that someone has prepared KGT
So, you have a choice. It's not always necessary to translate every possible
little nuance, and in poetry especially you may want to keep or omit the
syllable {-pu'} for metrical reasons.
> It's not overly complex. The problem is that it is a relative clause and as
> such, you reversed the words. {Hatlh} is the direct object of
> {tu'lu'pu'be'bogh}. There can be no subject because you used {-lu'}. {Hatlh}
> is a valid choice. I chose {wo'}. There is no exact translation for
> "country" and it just depends on whether you wish to take the meaning of
> "country" to refer to the land or to the place defined by
> culture/government, etc.
DloraH
: Hatlh is "country, countryside (n)". Many people don't see that second
: word. Hatlh is the country, in the sense of: away from the city, the trees
: and the fields, a small road with not much traffic, where the deer and the
: antelope play.
:
: Also, KGT p16 <<A specific area whose borders are definable ... is normally
: called a Sep, commonly translated as "region", though, since the regions
: were politically distinct in the past, "country" might have at one time been
: just as appropriate a translation.>>
:
: But even tho Sep is country, in the political sense, would it fit the poetic
: meaning of "undiscovered country"? I'm not that much into Shakespear.
Another option is {qo'} "world, realm" which is somewhat better than {Sep}.
Though it's often used as a synonym of {yuQ} "planet", the second gloss "realm"
indicates that {qo'} is somewhat broader.
Of the three, however, I much prefer charghI's suggestion of {wo'}. Viewing
Sto'Vo'Kor (or perhaps Gre'thor) as the Empire of the Dead sounds somewhat more
Klingon. Whichever you choose, don't fall into the trap of over-literal
translation, particularly WRT Shakespeare and other poetry.
BTW: This comes from Hamlet's soliloquy where he's contemplating killing
himself and travelling to the afterlife, that "undiscovered country", right?
How was it translated in the KLI version?
--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons