tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Feb 04 11:59:53 2011

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Re: tato'eba' yImuv 'ej mu'tlheghmey tImugh!

Robyn Stewart ([email protected]) [KLI Member] [Hol po'wI']

If you're going to transliterate placenames into 
Klingon, I find taking the English form a little 
imperialistic. We saw an Enterprise crewmember 
speaking her national language on board the ship 
in literally from the very first episode aired, 
so the Federation isn't set in a world where 
Earth has been degraded to a monolingual society. 
It's possible that the Klingons got their 
knowledge of Earth countries all from English 
language databases and not from any direct 
relations with the countries, but I like to think 
that by the time Klingons had a need to name 
Earth countries, they would be talking to those 
people and why would the universal translator 
render the name of a country to the Klingon in English?

I usually leave country names untranslated for 
clarity, but if I need to translate them for 
effect, I do my best to render them in a Klingon 
version of the name of the country as pronounced 
in the official or majority language of that 
country, giving me things like vIronaS, Doyche' 
puH, 'eSpanganpu'. We see a lot of foreign 
placenames in Klingon with an optional -ya' e.g. DenIb[ya'].

So if you're going for the "Klingon knowledge of 
Earth comes from English" idea I think SInya' or 
chInya' would be more likely than trying to 
replicate the English dipthong, but my favourite 
would be jongqu'a' or jong'u'a'. 
http://www.forvo.com/word/zhongguo/. The second 
syllable starts with a sound absent in Klingon, 
but it's nothing near a gh to my ear,


At 10:49 04/02/2011, you wrote:
>I understand your point of course. I see Klingon as a language with a very
>rigid syllable structure (CV(C)(C)), which makes it difficult to import new
>words just as is. We also know Klingons use a different writing system
>(however it might work), so in my eyes Klingon is a bit similar to languages
>like Thai or Korean maybe.
>But of course things like {chay'na} are completely arbitrary... I could've
>written {chayna} or {chayna'} or of course something like {junggho}.
>In the Klingon Wikipedia (now on Wikia) we left foreign names as they were
>but italicized them. That's not an option for Tatoeba, though. Marking them
>like "China"-vo' "Japan"-Daq jIlengpu' is ugly in such cases too.
>
>Do you think it's better to leave them just like they are and write, e.g.
>China-vo' Japan-Daq jIlengpu' (or maybe without the hyphens?)? If there's
>something like consensus about this, I'd be willing to change the sentences
>with proper names to a new format.
>
>Still I hope I won't stay the only contributor.
>- André
>
>2011/2/4 MorphemeAddict <[email protected]>
>
> > I think it's better not to translate place (or other) names. Instead of
> > {chay'na}, use {China}, for example, since the spelling is fairly
> > consistent
> > across natlangs, but the pronunciation varies radically.
> > lay'tel SIvten
> >
> > On Fri, Feb 4, 2011 at 5:27 AM, André Müller <[email protected]>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Hello fellow Klingonists,
> > > There's a website out there called Tatoeba (Japanese for "for example"),
> > > which collects example sentences in any language which then are
> > translated
> > > by visitors of the site into any other language. You might first think:
> > > "What is this crap used for?!", so read its purposes on the website
> > itself.
> > > I mainly contribute for the joy of translating random phrases. Some time
> > > ago
> > > I requested the Klingon language to be added and I've been translating
> > > about
> > > over 600 sentences since.
> > > Here's the link: http://tatoeba.org
> > >
> > > The site seems to be frequented by Esperantists, so why not try to make
> > it
> > > a
> > > source of (non-canon) example sentences for Klingon, too? Of course, you
> > > can
> > > also add canon-sentences with their original English translation or add
> > > translations in any other language you know (some here speak German,
> > Dutch
> > > and Swedish, I know).
> > >
> > > Some notes (so we might stay consistent): I've never dared to translate
> > > country names (except for "United Kingdom", for which we have a jocular,
> > > yet
> > > canon source), but I transcribed proper names of people and cities (Nancy
> > >
> > > nenSIy; Paris > perIS, as I assume Klingons would know Terran place names
> > > through DIvI' Hol). I used ! and ? at the end of imperative and
> > > interrogative sentences and «...» as/for 
> quotes. Oh, and always translate
> > > directly from the source sentences. Don't translate from Japanese if you
> > > only understand it's English translation. ;)
> > >
> > > I think, all translations are by me, so far. I believe my Klingon is
> > quite
> > > grammatically correct (I hope this doesn't sound arrogant), although
> > you've
> > > probably never seen me post anything in Klingon here. But please indicate
> > > corrections or comments below the sentences.
> > >
> > > I'd be happy to see more Klingon sentences added by you over time! :)
> > >
> > > chay'na Sep qunmIng vengvo' SavanneS,
> > > - André
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> >

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