[98353] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: [Tlhingan-hol] Canon and feelings for translating be-verbs
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Seruq)
Sun Apr 6 13:27:44 2014
From: "Seruq" <seruq@bellsouth.net>
To: <tlhingan-hol@kli.org>
Date: Sun, 6 Apr 2014 12:27:21 -0500
In-Reply-To: <005b01cf51b5$ea4f7500$beee5f00$@flyingstart.ca>
Errors-To: tlhingan-hol-bounces@kli.org
> law' 'Iw. - Blood is abundant. = There's a lot of blood.
> puS Soj. - Food is sparse. = There's not much food.
> does anyone feel that 'Iw law' tu'lu' is necessary in order
> to use that translation. Does anyone prefer 'Iw law' tu'lu'
> for that thought and think puS Soj is stilted?
Are we looking for a /translation/, or a secret decoder ring phrase substitution?
To me, [law' 'Iw] is about the blood being abundant.
['Iw law' tu'lu'] is about the fact that "one discovers" much blood.
What is the focus in the story being told?
> It's the same idea: "verb X" which should strictly be
> translated as "X verbs" becomes "There is X verbing."
This could fall into how we often joke about the wordiness of English.
> I don't expect anyone is going to object to such
> translations, but I have been twitching for fifteen years
> every time I see ghopHomDu' translated as "small hands" in
> the postal course, so I want to make sure this doesn't irk anyone.
I cringe every time someone uses -'a' and -Hom to denote simply "big" and "small".
Example, a crown is not necessarily big.
I can understand how using "there's..." when teaching beginners could cause some confusion. When I
study a new language, I want to see a choppy word-for-word substitution so I can learn what each
part of the sentence actually means. How do you learn vocabulary from actual usage if everyone
keeps throwing in extra words.
But... I have also seen many ignorant/arrogant people that have never studied a language make fun of
Klingon because the translations were given as choppy word-for-word instead of a more colloquial
form.
-- DloraH
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