[2003] in tlhIngan-Hol
Klingon translation of "Jonah"
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Sat Nov 13 18:45:11 1993
Reply-To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@klingon.East.Sun.COM>
From: DSTRADER@delphi.com
To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@klingon.East.Sun.COM>
Date: Sat, 13 Nov 1993 18:34:33 -0400 (EDT)
X-Vms-To: IN%"tlhIngan-Hol@klingon.east.sun.com"
Well, I've just perused and scrutinized MarkShoulson's Klingon translation
of the book of "Jonah", and I'm glad to say I was not disappointed. It was
remarkably clear and for the most part, the grammar was quite accurate.
Some points that cam to mind in reading thru your translation are noteworthy
on this list.
First off, {SuH yIHu'}, which comes up frequently, I would have translated
as {yIHu'rup}. But mayber that's among the less-than-noteworthy points. Oh
well.
In your intro, you said something about your uncertainty on how appositives wor
k
in Klingon. One of these at the beginning is {nInveyDaq
veng tInDaq}. No punctuation or nothing. But I think if Klingon does have
appositives, they might not function too far off from this construction.
One thing I noticed is the absence of any Type 7 Verb Suffixes used outside
dialog. At first I dismissed this as unimportant (and probably attributable
to laziness or obsession with minimizing cumbersomeness), but as I thought
about it, I thought, "Hey, Klingon really has no past tense. So when telling
stories, why _would_ you used aspect markers. The difference between the
perfect and imperfect tense in Indo-European Languages is probably a close
parallel to perfective aspect and (implicit) past tense in Klingon.
So in "narrative past tense," no Type 7 Suffix is used, most likely.
But this does raise another rather important point: I noticed a few sentences
that (believe it or not) carried a pluperfect connotaton, which is kind of
like a 'secondary past' or imperfect+perfect. Thus one of the perfective
suffixes is probably appropriate there. E.G.:
"I was not able to murder him, since someone had hid all my weapons."
{vIchotlaHbe' nuHwIj Hoch luSo'moHlu'*pu'*mo'}
I believe you also said in your intro that you were uncertain how to
write something for "be scared"
so you chose {ghIjlu'}. Well, you may not have noticed that there is a word
{Haj} for "to dread," which in some respect carries an equal semantic value
to "be scared."~eSx<.^
vJNEr*xv:
So maybe you could've said {Haj beq} instead of {beq ghIjlu'}.
Some of these non-canon words (or maybe you could call them "unobvious
compounds") are confusing. {toDghach} for "salvation" totally threw me
off; I had to go back and compare it directly to the English text. I have
no clue as to where you came up with {qa'} for "soul, spirit." Also,
what do you mean by {ramwI'}. Peasant? I dunno.
Other than these, I have no credible complaints.
You seemed to have a problem with north, south, east, and west. You wrote
{veng 'et[????]Daq}, when your meaning was "east of the city." Or maybe
it was north. I'd have to re-refer to the English Scripture. Anyways,
maybe you could try {veng retlhDaq} or {veng HurDaq} and leave the exact
direction vague.
Near the end, I cam across, {cha'netlh nuv} in the last sentence. The
actual KJV Scripture reads "six score thousand." With a little finger
(and toe) math and some zero-annexation, six score thousand comes out
Try {wa'bIp cha'netlh}. Altho the numbers aren't really consequential,
I just decided to make a point of that.
Guido#1, Leader of All Guidos
