tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Oct 22 16:05:51 2003

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Re: "Star Mitzvah" sound file?

Steven Boozer ([email protected]) [KLI Member] 

ngabwI':
> > I was absolutely unable to make out any of it, just by listening.
> > Who figured out what he was saying, and how did they do it?

ghunchu'wI':
>I used a combination of the Closed Caption text, the "English translation"
>provided by young Berman, and my years of exposure to the almost
>predictable mispronunciations of the actors on Star Trek: The Next
>Generation.

Here's Berman's translation:

   "My dearest son, each day you redeem me. May your journey be filled
    with the same joy, wisdom, and purpose you have given mine."

And here are the closed captions:

    Pookh lod wih le koo
    Hach jahj cho-koov-moakh
    Leng-lidge lou-teb
    Jahj leng widge-vahd bel rahp
    Shoave dah-nobe-poo-boagh

>If you choose the correct sound-to-text mapping and write down the sounds
>that Kelsey Grammer is speaking, you can approximate the text he's reading
>from.  Then you can read that text with a different text-to-sound mapping
>and produce what he *should* have been saying.
>
>"poe oak lode wee le kowe-owe" is what he says at the beginning.
>"pook-lode-wee le-koo" is probably what he's reading.
>{puqloDwI' le'qu'} is obviously what he meant.
>
>At the end, "showvay dah nobay powe-owe bowe-ahgh"
>likely comes from "showve da-nobe-poo-boagh",
>which, when pronounced appropriately, is {Sov Danobpu'bogh}.

I'll let ngabwI' reconstruct the rest of the Klingon for fun.

Holtej reported that a friend of Marc Okrand told him that Okrand did 
indeed translate the lines for the show.  He also offered to help coach the 
actor with his pronunciation, but they declined.  Okrand writes about this 
scene in HolQeD 11.4 (Dec. 2002) p. 11:

    The main difference between what aired and what I submitted, however,
    has nothing to do with transcription, but rather the absence of "purpose."
    Somehow, somewhere in the process, four words got dropped. Had the four
    words remained, Berman's translation would have matched what Frasier said,
    and Maltz would not have been so awed by Berman's skill.

N.B. There are four missing Klingon words from both Frasier's speech and 
the captions, which makes sense if the captions came from the script.  As 
an exercise, see if you can reconstruct them are.



-- 
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons

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