tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Sep 12 15:34:49 2003

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Re: yIchung, yIchung

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

From: "...Paul":

:"Faster, faster, until the thrill of speed
:overcomes the fear of death"

qaDna' 'oH mu'tlheghvam'e'. Qatlhqu''oH mughmeH Qu'.

Translating this sentence is a real challenge. It seems very hard, if not 
impossible, to come up with a translation which simultaneously captures
- the idea of "until"
- the parallelism between the two phrases:
  "the thrill of speed" and " the fear of death"
- the imagery (speed, going faster, overtaking)
- the metaphor (fear and thrill as moving objects)

One way to retain at least the metaphor and the imagery might be to use 
{juS} (overtake, pass) and hope that a Klingon (or a Klingonist) would be 
able to get the intended meaning:

1: yIchung! yIchung! HeghvIpghach juSjaj
    Seyqu'moHbogh Do.

   literally:

   Accelerate! Accelerate! May the velocity that
   really excites overtake the fear of dying.


As for the idea of "until", while the proposed {-choHbe'taHvIS} might do the 
the trick, how about using {-lI'}? After all, according to TKD, this suffix 
implies

   that the activity has a known goal or a definite
   stopping point. In other words, it suggests that
   progress is being made toward that goal. [TKD 4.2.7.]

What I'm suggesting is putting {-lI'} on the imperative to indicate that the 
action which someone is supposed to do (i.e. going faster, accelerating) 
should continue until a specific point in time, i.e. the moment when that 
someone becomes more thrilled with going fast than afraid of dying :

2: yIchung! yIchung! bIHeghvIptaHchugh 'ej
   wej DolIjmo' bISey'qu'chugh vaj yIchunglI'.

   literally:

   Accelerate! Accelerate! If you continue
   to be afraid to die and if you are not yet
   very excited because of your velocity then
   keep accelerating.

3: yIchung! yIchung! DughIjtaHchugh Hegh 'ej
   wej DuSeyqu'moHchugh Do vaj yIchunglI'.

   literally:

   Accelerate! Accelerate! If death continues
   to scare you and if your velocity does not
   yet greatly excite you then keep accelerating.

I'm not saying that these suggestions are better than what other people 
proposed. My examples (2) and (3) might actually be wrong, as there seem to 
be no canonical examples of {-lI'} appearing on imperatives.

'ISqu'

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