[98983] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: [Tlhingan-hol] ghargh'a' HoD'a' je -- cha'DIch
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Felix Malmenbeck)
Sun Jun 22 15:53:56 2014
From: Felix Malmenbeck <felixm@kth.se>
To: Gaerfindel <gaerfindel@hotmail.com>, "tlhingan-hol@kli.org"
<tlhingan-hol@kli.org>
Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2014 19:53:41 +0000
In-Reply-To: <BLU436-SMTP26FCF94B02D2894E762BDDD21C0@phx.gbl>
Errors-To: tlhingan-hol-bounces@kli.org
> Hmmm...Klingon seem to work better in short, choppy sentences. Maybe
> that ought to be my "guiding star" from now on.
I'd say that's a very good guiding star you've chosen :)
English uses a wide range of adpositions, determiners, particles and other =
{chuvmey} to press a lot of information into a short number of sentences.
This tends to be more difficult in Klingon. This can seem like a weakness, =
but at the same time, there's no reason we should think of low sentence cou=
nts as particularly virtuous.
A good example of this comes from Power Klingon, where somebody instructs h=
is pet to bite another person's leg off:
"Bit his/her leg off!"
{'uSDaj chop! chev!}
"Bit his/her leg! Separate it!"
The English translation uses one sentence where Klingon uses two, but both =
effectively communicate the same message.
(The sentence above uses Clipped Klingon; otherwise, it would presumably ha=
ve gone {'uSDaj yIchop! yIchev!}.)
> Sentence 1:
> {*Jeoffrey* ta' HIvje'Daq tar lIchlu'ta'}
> lit. "Into King Jeoffrey's cup someone purposefully poured poison.""
> =
> Sentence 2:
> { *dwarf*'e' lupum Hoch}
> "All accuse the dwarf."
majQa'! I was going to suggest something using {... net Har.} ("it is/was b=
elieved that ..."), but I think I like your translation better!
________________________________________
From: Gaerfindel [gaerfindel@hotmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, June 22, 2014 15:09
To: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
Subject: Re: [Tlhingan-hol] ghargh'a' HoD'a' je -- cha'DIch
On 6/21/2014 4:29 AM, Felix Malmenbeck wrote:
>> loD mach tu'lu'. loDHom tu'lu'.
> Not a grammatical mistake, but this gives me the feelings that you're tal=
king about two separate people: A small man and a boy.
>
> If there were a known Klingon word for "dwarf", I might recommend somethi=
ng like
> loD mach tu'lu'. *dwarf* ghaH.
> "There was a small man. He was a dwarf."
>> rut bID loD pong.
> I'm afraid I can't check from here, but I believe one ordinarily places =
=ABbID=BB after the thing that's in half; for example, I know "skirt" has b=
een translated as =ABpaH bID=BB ("half a dress/robe"), at least.
>
> Of course, one could argue that =ABloD bID=BB, "man's half", would be mor=
e appropriate for a man who's been cut in half, whereas =ABbID loD=BB ("hal=
f:ish man") is more appropriate for a man who exhibits some sort of ... "ha=
lfiness".
Well here's where I ran into some trouble. Not having a copy of the BoP
myself, I guessed that BID, like any other "number element", would come
before the noun it describes. But I can see your point; {BID loD} does
rather connote "half a man}, while {loD BID} comes across closer to the
appellation "half-man."
>
> Also, you'll want a -lu' on that =ABpong=BB, unless you've specified else=
where who it is that calls him "half-man" (in which case you'll probably wa=
nt a lu- prefix instead, to indicate that he's called this by more than one=
person).
maj.
>> chIch ta' HIvjeDaq tarHey'e' nopupu' loDHom}
> As you say, this is kind of a difficult sentence to translate.
> It seems you're trying to use a sentence as an object here, with the man =
as the subject of the second sentence.
> I'd advise you to restructure this, for example by putting the man in the=
first sentence, rather than the second.
>
> To illustrate:
> Let's say we have the sentence "This guard is known to kill prisoners."
> This can be rephrased as "It is known that this guard kills prisoners."
> which can be translated as
> =ABqama'pu' HoH 'avwI'vam net Sov.=BB
The problem here is {net Sov} *cannot* apply as it is *not* truly know
if Tirion poisoned King Jeoffrey.
But let's break this down, as you say:
Sentence 1:
{*Jeoffrey* ta' HIvje'Daq tar lIchlu'ta'}
lit. "Into King Jeoffrey's cup someone purposefully poured poison.""
Sentence 2:
{ *dwarf*'e' lupum Hoch}
"All accuse the dwarf."
Hmmm...Klingon seem to work better in short, choppy sentences. Maybe
that ought to be my "guiding star" from now on.
~quljIb
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