<html><head></head><body><div class="yahoo-style-wrap" style="font-family:Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;font-size:13px;"><div dir="ltr"><div></div>>Date: Wed, 12 May 2021 16:29:16 -0400<br></div><div id="ydp4ef7abcyahoo_quoted_1030000941" class="ydp4ef7abcyahoo_quoted"><div style="font-family:'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;font-size:13px;color:#26282a;"><div><div dir="ltr">>From: SuStel <<a href="mailto:sustel@trimboli.name" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">sustel@trimboli.name</a>><br></div><div><br></div><div>>maj. pov qechvam. bIQapjaj!</div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">I was really proud that I recognized "maj" as the interjection for "Good!" without having to look it up! qatlho'.</div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div>>> Another thing I want is to start translating things into Klingon. Some <br><div dir="ltr">>> help isn't bad, but even if I translate the whole thing on my own, I <br></div><div dir="ltr">>> want to make sure I didn't (a) make a syntax error, (b) misuse <br></div><div dir="ltr">>> affixes, or (c) misunderstand the meaning of a word.<br></div><div dir="ltr">>><br></div><div dir="ltr">>> I already have a particular pop song I'd like to translate in mind. <br></div><div dir="ltr">>> Stay tuned!<br></div><div dir="ltr">><br></div><div dir="ltr">>Beginners always want to translate things, especially songs and poems, <br></div><div dir="ltr">>and this is probably one of the hardest things you can do.<br></div><div dir="ltr">><br></div><div dir="ltr">>Translating simple sentences and ideas is one thing. Translating poetry <br></div><div dir="ltr">>or lyrics that were chosen to be metaphorical, subtle, and pithy is <br></div><div dir="ltr">>quite another, and even expert Klingon speakers have trouble doing it well.<br></div><div dir="ltr">><br></div><div dir="ltr">>I won't tell you not to translate such things, but I strongly recommend <br></div><div dir="ltr">>you start on expressing yourself in Klingon rather than trying to <br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">>translate the expressions of others.<br></div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">A perspective I hadn't considered. I understand this, as I'm a songwriter myself (with a YouTube channel up at Savegraduation), and was recently invited to translate "I Want It That Way" by BSB into Kankonian (I'm translating some parts; my collaborator, who has his own conlang, is translating other parts). Not only am I a native English speaker, but I understand my own conlang well enough to reason that "You are my fire" would become *Ar as oul rivas* (You are the only blood), as blood is a metaphor used in Kankonian for things that are full of life and passion. My grasp on Kankonian's vocabulary is good enough to be able to think of *pivas* (girls) as a word that rhymes with *rivas*, so I could get the first two lines at: *Ar as oul rivas/Sem hales pivas* (You are the only blood/Among all girls). And so on.</div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">I've looked at some song translations on the Klingon Wiki, and I noticed most of them rhyme. So there's an unwritten convention in translating songs into Klingon to get them to fit both the meter and rhyme of the original lyrics?<br></div></div>
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