tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Jan 23 01:04:12 2010
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Re: Cogito ergo sum (was RE: Numbers with pronouns)
As I remember it, Okrand said that he had been given the warning that they would want an example of Klingon Shakespeare, but they didn't give him a specific line. He went through MacBeth and several other Shakespearian plays and picked out some great lines that translated well into Klingon, both in grammar and spirit. He had them on a clipboard, ready to give them a choice of which one they preferred.
Then Nimoy said, "Gimme 'To be or not to be.'" That wasn't one of the ones on his clipboard, and he specifically structured the language to avoid two things:
1. The verb "be"
2. Infinitives
So, off the top of his head, he took the Type 7 verb suffix we know and love and turned it into a verb, and flubbed the grammar, all in one blow. He didn't mention anything about {yIn}, and he didn't mention anything about having the time to change his mind about the line. It just came out.
That's why it literally means "He endures or he doesn't endure". It's probably one of the worst single examples of canon he has yet produced, right in there with "I'm lost."
He did say that Christopher Plumber asked him if his his meter sounded alien enough. Instead of {taH... pagh taHbe'}, he said, {taH pagh... taHbe'}. He liked that it was "wrong" in terms of not being "To be.... or not to be".
Doq
On Dec 2, 2009, at 2:18 PM, Steven Boozer wrote:
> Voragh:
>>> I like {taH} even though it doesn't mean "exist" sensu stricto; in
>> fact, there is no verb meaning "exist" known in Klingon. {taH} is pithy
>> and it fits in nicely with other examples:
>>>
>>> taH pagh taHbe'
>>> "To be or not to be." ST6
>>>
>>> KGT 194: literally, "[one] continues or [one] does not continue"
>
> Chris:
>> Oh, my. Is that Okrand's translation from KGT?? 'oy' jay'!! Based on
>> everything we know (well, more strictly, what I know), <taH pagh
>> taHbe'> means "s/he/it endures or s/he/it doesn't endure." I have no
>> idea why Okrand would translate these normal, active verbs into this
>> odd English construction...
>
> Okrand did it on the spur of the moment. He had originally translated the line as {yIn pagh yInbe'}, but when filming the scene actor Christopher Plummer ("Chang") didn't feel it sounded "Klingon enough," so Okrand quickly changed it to {taH}. According to ~mark, Okrand said at a qep'a' that when they sprang the "to be or not to be" request on him on the set of ST6, he said to himself that no matter what, there was no way he was going to put a copula into Klingon, especially not NOW.
>
> FYI, here's the first lines of the soliloquy in the KLI's translation of Hamlet:
>
> taH pagh taHbe'. DaH mu'tlheghvam vIqelnIS.
> quv'a', yabDaq San vaQ cha, pu' je SIQDI'?
> pagh, Seng bIQ'a'Hey SuvmeH nuHmey SuQDI',
> 'ej, Suvmo', rInmoHDI'?
>
>
> --
> Voragh
> Canon Master of the Klingons
>
>
>