[86003] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: Klingon translation
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Terrence Donnelly)
Fri Jun 26 09:32:59 2009
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 06:30:19 -0700 (PDT)
From: Terrence Donnelly <terrence.donnelly@sbcglobal.net>
To: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
Errors-to: tlhingan-hol-bounce@kli.org
Reply-to: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
--- On Thu, 6/25/09, David Trimboli <david@trimboli.name> wrote:
> Michael Everson wrote:
> > I am doing a short translation. The text is
> well-known, but is
> > syntactically complex in English. I have made a stab
> at the first
> > sentence; my rendering of it came to two separate
> sentences in Klingon.
> >
> > How about if I give my translation here, without the
> original (which
> > is well-known, but let's forget that) and see if it
> makes sense.
> >
> > Here it is:
> >
> > ’Iv HoS law’ ’Iv HoS puS, ’e’ ghoHtaHvIS SuS
> bIr Hov je, ghoSpu’
> > lengwI’. wep tuj tuqtaH ghaH.
> >
> > What do you make of it?
>
> "While the cold wind and the star argue that who is
> stronger, the
> traveler has gone. He is [wearing] a hot jacket."
>
> I don't recognize it. It's hard to advise if I don't know
> the concept
> you're trying to get across. I'll just point out some of
> the biggest
> errors without necessarily recommending a correction.
>
It's "The North Wind and the Sun", which I've seen used fairly often in conlanging as a common text for translation. I think I've even seen someone's effort in Klingon before this.
SuStel's comments are all accurate (BTW, I'm currently the Beginner's Grammarian [BG], so if you mark a text KLBC, I will answer you first, then others get a stab at it).
Here's how I'd tackle your first sentence: {'Iv ghaH nIvbogh HoSwI''e'? 'e' ghoH SuS bIr qo' Hov je.} "The cold wind and the homestar argue 'Who is the strongest'?" This doesn't actually restrict the choices of the strongest to the two disputants, but it's a lot less wordy than the only alternative I can think of: {SuS bIr HoS law''a' qo' Hov HoS puS'a' pagh qo' Hov HoS law''a' Sus bIr HoS puS'a'? 'e' ghoH SuS bIr qo' Hov je.} On the other hand, Klingon seems more friendly to that kind of repetition than English, so maybe the longer form would be preferred. I've made the sentence with {'e'} separate from the question in both cases, because I'm not sure that you can use {'e'} with preceding questions as part of the same sentence. When used by itself, {'e'} to me just implies 'that whole thought which came before'.
-- ter'eS BG
