tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Feb 06 10:47:50 2011
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Re: country names (was Re: tato'eba' ...)
lojmIt tI'wI' nuv,
I disagree with you. At least partly.
Even though I might appear to you as one of the "least experienced
speakers", because you perhaps never read my name and never saw me on any
Klingonists' conference (I indeed haven't participated in any, so far), I'm
hardly a "newbie". I started learning Klingon (with moderate success) over
15 years ago, and made much progress in accurate grammar in the last some
years. Maybe not as much as most of you here, but I'm surely not the new guy
that claims to be fluent and wants to be the new ruler in the world of
Klingon speakers, that you might think I am. But maybe one is a newbie, if
one has used a language only in written communication and usually for
oneself... then, perhaps, yes.
Indeed I like translating and translations, not only in Klingon. However, to
me it's far more than just using another language to say "what someone else
has written". Translations are more than that and the Klingon Hamlet or the
ghIlghameS are indeed good examples for that. So yes, I do like translating
things into Klingon not just for my own good, and I'm not embarassed that
it's "only" translations.
I'm not a big fan of poetry. But it's not that I never wrote anything
"original" in Klingon. Though, it's usually limited to my blog (
http://n-true.livejournal.com/tag/klingon), where I rant about whatever
comes to my mind (and sometimes shouldn't be understood by my friends). So,
no, it's not high literature, and perhaps full of mistakes (especially the
entries older than, say, 2 years). And I'm not especially proud of it
either.
There you have some texts... but behold: there be transliterations!
Sometimes just as a play with language (I like seeing the outcome of
transliteration of proper names indeed, I confess), sometimes as a means of
garbling names of friends. Silly, I know. I'd still do it on my blog
sometimes, I guess, but I now agree it was silly to do the same on Tatoeba.
But hey, I like your call: "Tell us stories (true or fictional) in our
little jewel of a language. That is the highest challenge." â?? to me
personally it's a challenge as high as translating a work of literature (far
higher than just translating single sentences, of course), so here we
disagree... but, yeah, I might indeed write some stories or anecdotes here.
I've been following this list for a few years, but never thought of posting
random stories or anectodes here for everyone, thinking it might look like
bragging or something. But yeah, why should it? Plus, it's a good way to get
responses, corrections, suggestions for improvement. And maybe even respect?
Don't know...
vaj wa' DoS wIqIp. lut vIghItlhmeH tlhIngan Hol vIlo' vIneHqu', qoj
Saja'meH. lut Dun vIqonlaHchu' 'e' vIHon, lut teH vImaS. nuq tuchup?
BTW, I've been long wanting to participate in the qepHom in Germany, but it
always coincided with either a Linguistics conference or an Esperanto
meeting. Maybe next year...
@Lieven:
Thanks for the input. Yeah, I'm always thinking about the translation of
proper names. Actually that's something that I find interesting in every
language and I'm currently writing a paper on the same topic in the Georgian
language (not *in* Georgian, though). So, it's not that I'm not aware of the
difficulties and arbitrarities of translating names, it's more that I
personally don't oppose these methods.
2011/2/7 lojmIt tI'wI'nuv <[email protected]>
> It gets me that the least experienced speakers are rarely content to
> translate simple, meaningful sentences for their own use. More commonly,
> they want to publish something for the whole world to represent the rest of
> us (whether we like this or not) and it's almost always poetry or large
> piles of transliterated words not in our 2800 or so word vocabulary with the
> expansion provided by the affixes.
>
> I wish I had the time to do what these people shun. It's like it is beneath
> them to actually participate in what the language does well. They disrespect
> what ghunchu'wI' has done beautifully for the last couple weeks, which is to
> speak Klingon well to describe something clearly to people who have never
> witnessed what he is describing, yet thanks to his obvious skill, others who
> know the language can have an accurate mental image of the devices and
> events and people that he is describing.
>
> THIS is how I'd like us represented to the world. If we have a legacy, it
> should be that we have a functional language and we have proven its
> functionality over and over. Not that we can add to a pile of translations
> of things someone else wrote. Not that we can write impenetrable "poetry"
> that makes most of us wince or roll our eyes. That we can write and speak
> our own little jewel of a language.
>
> Note that I recognize the translation of Shakespeare's sonnets and the
> verse portions of Hamlet are brilliant exceptions to my general aversion to
> Klingon poetry. Translations of stories are generally more valuable than
> translations of random sentences because the story line forces the speaker
> to face challenges otherwise simple to dodge in order to effectively tell
> the story in a way that holds together.
>
> The story is a larger unit of meaning. Beyond word, phrase, sentence,
> paragraph or chapter is the story. You want to represent us to history,
> making your mark on the history of this community? Tell us stories (true or
> fictional) in our little jewel of a language.
>
> That is the highest challenge.
>
> lojmit tI'wI' nuv
>
> Sent from my iPod
>
> On Feb 6, 2011, at 4:47 AM, Lieven Litaer <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > we have discussed many times about transcribing or translating country
> > names and agreed not to do so.
> >
> > First, the problem is that every language prounounces a name different,
> > like french *parIy* or english *perIS*.
> >
> > second: if you want to "translate" a name (not only countries') into
> > Klingon, first think about how would you translate it into english? My
> > standard question for my students: What's "Pizza" in German? :-)
> >
> > third, if you try to translate its meaning - how can you be sure that
> > every one knows and understands this meaning? Many people in Europe
> > don't even know what USA stands for... or would you accept {ngangwI' Hol
> > Sep} for "Germany"?
> >
> > jIlengtaHvIS, GermanyDaq jIleng. pa' Pizza vISop 'ej Cola vItlhutlh.
> > vIyajlu'bej 'ej moHbe' HolwIj.
> >
> > Qapla'
> > Lieven.
> >
> > PS: please "like" this:
> > The qepHom is now on Facebook!
> > http://www.facebook.com/qepHom
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
>