tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Oct 29 10:14:13 2009

Back to archive top level

To this year's listing



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

FW: Declaration of Independence preamble

Steven Boozer ([email protected])



From: Doug Wilder [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2009 11:34 AM
To: Steven Boozer
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Declaration of Independence preamble

Thanks Voragh!

Someone got to it before me! I listened to the podcast of the show and heard that someone had submitted the "35 Words" in Klingon. I was stunned. I had this idea soon after the "35 Words Project" was announced but did not act fast enough.

The "35 Words Project" was started by the talk show "The Thomas Jefferson Hour". Go to www.jeffersonhour.org<http://www.jeffersonhour.org> to read about it. They are gathering as many recordings (not just written) of the 35 words in different languages as possible and plan to do a show on it before the end of the year. I wanted to submit in Klingon and proper Tolkien Elvish but do not know these languages well. I posted an add to my local Craigs List but got only one response from someone who claims to know Elvish.

Someone from this list should listen to the show whenever it's done and see if whoever submitted the Klingon version did it correctly. Although, I"m not sure if they'll play all 35 words.

Thanks again. I'd like to hear more input on the proper translation of this if anyone has any.

Doug
On Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 11:07 AM, Steven Boozer <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Doug Wilder:
>I'm looking for an accurate translation into Klingon of the following:
>"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,
>that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,
>that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

Well, this is a very elegant sentence and I'm not sure we can do justice to the style, but we can translate the basic ideas.  Here's my first attempt with untranslated words in (parentheses):

We hold these truths to be self-evident,

 teHba' vItmeyvam 'e' wIHar
 "we believe that these truths are obviously true"

(that) all men are (created) equal,

 rap Hoch loDpu'
 "all men [sic!] are the same"

 rap Hoch ghotpu'
 "all people (humanoid) are the same"

(that) they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,

 chaHvaD 'op DIbna'(mey) lunob chenmoHwI'chaj
 "their creator gives them some (an unknown quantity of) definite rights/privileges"

(that) among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

 yIn, tlhab, bel tlha'lI'ghach, latlhpu' je
 "life, freedom, the pursuit of pleasure, and others"

I also considered *{QuchchoHlI'ghach} "becoming happy [in progress]" for the "pursuit of happiness".  For stylistic reasons I would like to say {yIn, tlhab, bel je} "life, freedom and pleasure" but the Declaration does not say that we have a right to happiness itself, merely a right to pursue it.


Putting this all together, we have:

 teHba' vItmeyvam 'e' wIHar:  rap Hoch ghotpu';  chaHvaD
 'op DIbna'(mey) lunob chenmoHwI'chaj;  yIn, tlhab, bel
 tlha'lI'ghach, latlhpu' je.


>I tried Mr. Klingon but am not confident that the translation is
>accurate.

Doug, why don't you post that version on the tlhIngan_Hol list for us to compare?


--
Voragh
Canon Master of the Klingons






Back to archive top level