tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue May 19 06:30:56 2009

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Re: Klingon Anti-Virus

nahqun ([email protected]) 

Hrm... I can see the confusion.

1) I don't currently have the software installed on my machine to quickly view the text. That will have to wait until this afternoon.

2) Have you ever participated in the "Google in your language program"?
Like Google, Sophos gave me strings of text to translate, often with computer code in the middle of it. Unlike Google, there was no way to know *exactly* how the text would be used.
There were no noun/verb markers, and no "preview" mode to see real text plugged into the sentence.

I was also stuck with the program's bias towards English word order.

For example

"The scanner is"

Well, presumably there's a field to be filled with "running/paused/etc.". But that's not how the Klingon wants to work.


I doubt they wanted to totally redesign their program just for this.


To summarize, it makes sense as individual sentences or snippets. I have no idea how it's been combined in the final product.

~naHQun

--- Original Message ---
From:"ghunchu'wI'" <[email protected]>
Sent:Tue 5/19/09  8:22
To:[email protected]
Subj:Re: Klingon Anti-Virus

On May 18, 2009, at 11:30 PM, [email protected] wrote:

> mu' vImughHa'bogh yIngu'!

It's not a matter of individual words.  It's more that the intent of  
the words which are there is not obvious.  In the critique which  
follows, try to keep in mind that I'm working from a position of near- 
ignorance of the original text in particular, and of Windows virus  
scanners in general.

The menu names are confusing, for example: are they supposed to be  
commands to the computer, options for the user to choose, or  
something else? I read them as actions "accomplish computer", "see",  
"establish", and "help".  Only the last one means something I recognize.

In the {Dotlh} "status" pane, the words {chu'Ha' HotlhtaH naw'DI'}  
are all verbs.  Is it a badly formed sentence?  Three clipped  
sentences?  I can't tell what it means.  There's something very wrong  
with {bIghHa': 0Daq Dochmey}, but I don't know what it's supposed to  
be saying, so I don't know what to suggest to fix it.  The line with  
the time and date probably is misusing {poH} "interval, period of  
time", and seems unnecessarily convoluted.  Is there anything wrong  
with just saying <5/7, 2009 7:17AM chu'qa'>?  From context, I assume  
{lIngwI' SeghHom} ("producer's subtype"?) is supposed to be something  
like "revision number", but I don't see how.

I just now understood {Sophos juHnav Such}, but I had to translate it  
into English first in order to recognize the meaning.  {juHnav}  
"homepaper" strikes me as a very poor coinage to name a web page, and  
{Such} "visit" is an unreasonably literal translation.  {The closest  
thing to this use of "home" is probably {waw'} "base".  My preferred  
idiom for viewing a web page is {Hotlh} "project, put on screen",  
though that might be confusing in the context of a virus scanner.)

I'm sure each of these has a perfectly reasonable justification.  But  
without my knowing in advance what they mean, the effort put forth to  
translate them is mostly wasted on me.

-- ghunchu'wI'

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