tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Oct 01 15:02:08 2003

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Re: Sun Tzu's Art of War:

Agnieszka Solska ([email protected]) [KLI Member] [Hol po'wI']

...Paul:

>Has anyone attempted to translate Sun Tzu's Art of War into tlhIngan Hol? 
>That seems like it'd be the perfect piece to attempt to translate...

Se'noj:

>Yes, this has been attempted many times. I beleive that the latest public 
>attempt was my own, ...

Have any of those attempts have been sent to the list?

>I would be happy to coordinate and colaborate with anyone who would like to 
>try it again.

I'd love to translate Sun Tzu at some stage but first I want to finish 
translating Tao Te Ching and after that I believe I will need to "get a 
life" {{:-) and enjoy it for a while.

...Paul:

>Were you translating from the original (in Chinese, I think it was?) or 
>from an English translation?

Se'noj:

>I was working from a reliable English translation, with the original 
>presented alongside it.

paq Dalo'bogh yIngu'.
Which translation are you using?

Translating from a translation is understandable but have you considered 
learning Chinese? After all, it's not some obscure language known only to a 
handful of specialist and there are many handbooks and courses on offer. 
Well, obviously, what you'd really need in this case is Classical Chinese.

The problem is there is no such thing as a completely reliable translation.
Before I laid my hands on the Chinese text of the Tao Te Ching I spent weeks 
translating some chapters from a very good English translation. When I was 
finally able to compare my version with the original I was dismayed to find 
out that in the case of some chapters my time and effort had been completely 
wasted because the English translation diverged so drastically from the 
Chinese text.
Also, on quite a few occasions I actually found it easier to translate into 
the Klingon than ENglish. For instance, either <ghot> or <nuv> can be used 
to render the Chinese word "ren2" but it's not easy to find an equally 
sex-neutral equivalent in English.

'ISqu'

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