tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Feb 04 13:00:40 2011

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

Andrà MÃller ([email protected]) 

voragh qatlho' bIQIjchu'mo'. latlh Satlho' je.
@lojmIt tI'wI' nuv
In the last some hours I refrained from translating sentences with proper
names. I guess I'll leave them out as well. But how would a Klingon not
speak about a Terran region? Maybe Maltz himself travelled around a bit?
It's certainly not the case that a Klingon "would not be talking about
China", but it's rather that a Klingon never before used a word for China to
our knowledge. However, the United Kingdom was mentioned before in canon
source as: {wo' tay' tlhInganpu' maH!} (We are U.K. Klingons!),
http://klingonska.org/canon/1996-08.txt

@Robyn:
Yeah, the "gh" sound is not so close to the /k/ in that syllable, so maybe
{jungqo} would be closest (not {jong}, though; I doubt Klingon speakers
would let their pronunciation be influenced by the pinyin spelling). I
wouldn't make it trisyllabic, either. Anyways, that's not important now. The
problem then is, most countries aren't monolingual, some even don't have one
clear major language. Just think of India or Southern Africa...
Hehe, I like the 中å?½Daq æ??æ??vo' idea. ;)
By the way, there's yet another way: neither leave the name, nor
transliterate it, but *translate* is as close as possible. China might be
rendered as {botlh Sep} or {botlh wo'}, Japan as {Hovmung (Sep)} (still no
real word for 'sun', dammit), Australia as {tIng chan (Sep)}, the
Netherlands as {beQ (Sep)} and Holland as {Sor Hap yoS} etc. Sounds
interesting, but difficult. I'll go the easier way of avoiding the
translations.

@Steven:
Thanks for the hint with the {... SepDap ... vengDaq}; I simply assumed a
possessive relationship or something. I'll add a note to my dictionary for
{Sep}, {veng} and {yoS}.

Greetings,
- André

2011/2/5 Steven Boozer <[email protected]>

> Andre:
> >>>> chay'na Sep qunmIng vengvo' SavanneS,
> Until they eventually realize that these are Terran names, beginners (and
> others) will waste time trying to analyze the very Klingon-looking
> *{chay'na}:  {chay'} "how?" + {na'} "be salty/brackish" or {na'} "be
> sure/definite/positive/certain (slang)" or even a typo for {-na'} "definite,
> true, etc."
>
> *{qunmIng} looks like it might be {qun} "history" or {qun} "scold" +
> *{mIng} a typo for {mIn} "eye"(??).
>
> For this reason I usually leave proper names in all caps as a signal that
> they're not tlhIngan Hol words.  E.g.
>
>  CHINA Sep KUNMING veng
>
> But *if* you like Klingonized Terran country names, Qov has a convenient
> list of them on her Klingon blog:
> http://bologh.blogspot.com/2004_02_15_bologh_archive.html#107706590568345242
>
> ... which does have the advantage of being a shared list so we don't have
> to argue about every single transliteration every single time.  And
> {chay'na'} (with a final apostrophe) is on her list.
>
>
> lay'tel SIvten:
> >>> 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.
>
> ghunchu'wI':
> >> 'a <chan'a'> vIlo' vIneH. mu'qIDmey vIparHa'.
>
> Andre:
> > 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.
>
>
> But whatever method you prefer WRT proper names, you would still need to
> say:
>
>  CHINA Sepvo' KUNMING vengvo' SavanneS
>
> We know that the locative suffixes {-Daq} - and probably {-vo'} - need to
> be added to each noun/name of a hierarchical location (e.g. Chicago,
> Illinois, USA, Earth).  There's an example on the BoP Poster:
>
>  tlhIngan juHqo'Daq tlhIng yoSDaq 'oH toQDuj chenmoHlu'meH Daq wa'DIch'e'
>  1st Construction Site: The Kling District, Klingon Home World.   (KBoP)
>
> If however the nouns are in apposition to each another (e.g. their
> homeworld, Kronos) the suffix need only be added to the last in the series:
>
>  juHqo' Qo'noSvo' loghDaq lengtaHvIS tlhInganpu'
>  During the (aggressive) expansion of the Klingon people from their
>   homeworld of Kronos into space...  (SP1)
>
>
> --
> Voragh
> Ca'Non Master of the Klingons
>
>
>
>

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