tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed May 21 08:00:40 2003

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Great Tao [Was: Re: Tao Te Ching Chp. 34]

It just occurred to me that though I definitely need to find a good way to 
render the Chinese "da4" (great) when it is used to describe various things, 
I don't really need to worry about translating "da4 dao4" (great Tao), one 
of the recurrent phrases of "Tao Te Ching". The reason is simple: I've 
already done it. Great Tao is exactly what {mIw'a'} means

Let me explain.  The Chinese word "dao4" means "a path, way, method". By 
extension the word is used to talk about the way the world is, the way it 
works. It is in this sense that "dao4" is used in "Tao Te Ching" (Dao De 
Jing). In many English translations "dao4" is translated as the Way, spelled 
with a capital "W" to indicate its special status. I didn't like the idea of 
translating "Tao" as {mIw} so I chose {mIw'a'}. As I once explained, the 
word is meant to indicate a way understood as a "procedure, process" {mIw}, 
yet one that is "bigger, more important or powerful" than any other process 
we can think of (implied by the augmentative suffix -'a'). It is modelled on 
such Klingon words as {SuvwI''a'} "great warrior", {DevwI''a'} "great 
leader". Naturally, {mIw'a'} like {SuvwI''a'} can be {tIn} or {potlh} or 
{HoS} or {Dun} but that's because those attributes are already implied by 
{-'a'}.

Thanks to your posting, ghunchu'wI', I can stop trying to create a pleonasm, 
which solves *some* of my problems. {{:-) qatlho'qu'.

'ISqu'

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