tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Oct 05 06:58:27 2003

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Re: KLBC: Sun Tzu's "Art of War"

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

ghItlh Captain Haddock:

>Today I stop being a lurker.

maj.

>As a small contribution and as a begining I post this little try. Please, 
>dig in and analys!

batlh 'ay'vam Damughta'.

>Maybe it can be a start for a discussion about how to translate Sun Tzu 
>properly.

'e' vItul.

chovnatlh Dalabta'bogh vIqelbej.
"KLBC" per Dalo'mo' pab Qaghmey vIqelbe'.
mu'mey neH vIqel.
DIvI' Hol vIlo'mo' jItlhIj.

>QI' to'

The Chinese title of "The Art of War" is "bing1 fa3".
"Bing1" means "soldier(s)", "army", "weapon(s)",
"military" while the dictionary definitions of "fa3"
include "law" (suggesting {chut}), "method"
(suggesting {mIw}), "doctrine", "art", or "principles".

In the light of those definitions the use of {QI'}
seems fine but {to'}, literally "tactics", is probably
too narrow.

My personal feeling here is that rather than try to find the closest 
equivalents for the two words in the title it might be a good idea to 
capture in Klingon what the book is about by using our knowledge of what 
Klingon titles of works of art and literature are like.

Now, it would appear that in Klingon sentences or verb phrases are often 
used as titles. We know of a cookbook of by J'puq, entitled {jabmeH}, i.e. 
In Order to Serve. There is also a statue entitled {ghobchuq loDnI'pu'}, 
i.e. "the brothers fight one another"). So why not phrase the title in verbs 
rather than nouns. My own suggestion would be to model the title on J'puq's 
classic and call the Klingon version of the Art of War:

   QojmeH,
   i.e. in order to make war

or

  Qojchu'meH,
   i.e. in order to make war perfectly

Mind you, this is just a suggestion.

>Sunchu' qon

I think Quvar has already commented on this line.

>nabmeH mIw

This is the title of the first of the thirteen chapters of the Art of War. 
Again, why not use a sentence rather than a noun phrase. Why not write:

   nablu',
   i.e. one lays plans

>wo'vaD potlhqu' QI' to'

potlhqu':
You may want to consider {'ut} in place of {potlhqu'}

QI' to':
Since "Bing fa" also appears in the text, I'd go for {Qojchu'meH mIw} or 
{QojmeH mIw}, to suggest art understood as the principles or methods 
governing whatever is involved in making war.

>vagh Dochmey pabqu' veS to', not choH Dochmeyvam.

I strongly suspect that Klingon {Doch} is not as versatile as English 
"thing". I doubt it is appropriate to use {Doch} when expressing any of the 
following ideas:

How are things?
Biking is a fun thing to do.
In your essay you left out a few important things.

>luperlu':  (wa') mIw'a'

I feel flattered that you used exactly the same word for Tao as I did in  my 
translation of Tao Te Ching but bear it in mind that {mIw'a'} is not an 
official Klingon equivalent of the Chinese word. If you use it in the text 
make sure your readers know what you are talking about.

>(cha') chal (wej) tera'

Those two simple words have caused me no end of trouble.
I originally translated them the way you did but on reflection I think it is 
wrong.

Take {chal}. For all we know in Klingon this word probably refers only to 
the firmament and nothing else. Now the Chinese {tian1} carries a whole 
variety of meanings including sky, day, atmosphere, weather, climate, a 
divine force controlling human fate, the abode of the god(s) and/or the 
spirits of the dead. We cannot hope Maltz will ever give us a word that 
incorporates all of those meanings. The best we can do is translate the 
meanings which are most pertinent to warfare and IMHO that word we need 
might be {muD}.

As for {tera'}, it is quite possible that in Klingon this word is simply a 
name of a planet and is no more special than names of other planets, such as 
Vulcan (vulqan), Neural (nural) or Cardassia (qarDaS). In other words, as a 
name of a distant planet it won't have the same range of meanings as the 
English "earth" or Chinese "di". And what we need here is a word indicating 
land, ground, terrain. Perhaps {yav} could do the job.

Anyway, good luck with your translation.

'ISqu'

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