tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Jul 03 07:58:57 2009

Back to archive top level

To this year's listing



[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]

Re: tera'Daq jIghIQvIS

ghunchu'wI' ([email protected])



On Jul 3, 2009, at 10:05 AM, JON BROWN wrote:

> On the possibility that a Klingon vacationed on Earth I assume they  
> would for the most part just refer to countries in the nearest way  
> they could pronounce them or a transliteration of the sounds. So if  
> this happened and they went home and started telling fellow  
> Klingons about what they did and wanted to say:
> "While I vacationed on Earth I visited France and Finland."
>
> Is it likely they would say
>
> tera'Daq jIghIQvIS, <vIranIS> <vInlanID> je vISuchta'

Why not transliterate the native name instead of the English one?   
{veranSey} "Français" even gets the emphasis on the right syllable.

Getting a little tricky here, I think a cultured speaker of {ta'  
tlhIngan Hol} would probably pronounce "Finland" as {vInlIN}, where  
the last sound is a Klingon {D} with a little bit of retroflex "n" in  
front of it.

> Or So that people knew they were regions or countries of Earth  
> rather than any other things that can be visited, would this  
> Klingon possibly say:
>
> tera'Daq jIghIQvIS, <vIranS> Sep <vInlanID> Sep je vISuchta'

I'd choose the verb {jaH} "go" instead of {Such} "visit", to at least  
partially remove the ambiguity.  That way it doesn't imply as  
strongly that the foreign names refer to people.  But KGT suggests  
that using {Sep} is probably the way to go.

> That said if a Klingon came across countries names or part names  
> that they could translate into Klingon, would they bother.
>
> e.g. would they be tempted to say [wo'Hom DIvI'Sep] instead of say  
> [<unayteD qIngDom> Sep] for United Kingdom. Assuming of course that  
> [wo'Hom] could be used for Kingdom.

Marc Okrand bothered. :) He translated "United Kingdom" as {wo' tay'}  
"together empire".

> I suppose this guesswork should be based on how people of earth  
> name other countries... Do they make up new names, transliterate  
> all or part of a name and translate the rest. Unfortunately that's  
> something I don't know but may be someone here has an insight into.

The Klingon Dictionary indicates that place names are at least  
sometimes transliterated.  "Sherman's Planet" becomes {SermanyuQ},  
for example.  {tera'} for "Earth (Terra)" is another example, though  
slightly obscured.

-- ghunchu'wI'





Back to archive top level