The phrase “vengDaq jIboghpu'bogh” idly popped into my mind this morning and naturally it morphed into this. Please let me know about any unforgivable grammatical or lexical errors and I will do my best to correct them while preserving the flow of the song:
This is the old ship in which I fled problem. The head noun of a relative clause MUST be either the subject or object of the clause.
Without regard to meter or rhyme, in the town where I was
born would probably best be expressed as boghpu'ghach
vengwIj in my birth-town.
vengHomDaq jIboghpu'bogh, bIQ'a' lengbogh loD tu'lu'. maHvaD yInDaj lut nuja', Daq bIQ Dujmey Hoch qaSpu'.
I don't understand this line.
I'd also note that a bIQ Duj is already used for a
surface ship. I'm not sure how Klingons would refer to a
submarine.
vaj bIQDaq jul mave'taH,
I think what you're going for is vaj bIQDaq julDaq mave'
So we travel on a mission in the water toward the sun. The
word jul needs some kind of reason for being there. I
don't think you really want -taH; the line So we
sailed up to the sun / Till we found a sea of green isn't
about the continuousness of the journey, going on before the time
of this action and going on after the time of this action. It's
just a statement of what the action was.
bIQ'a' SuD wISamDI' mamev.
I know you're concerned for meter and assonance, but this really
needs to be mamevpu', and probably wISampu'DI'.
You're talking about an action that is completed in the time in
which the action happens.
'ej yu'egh bIngDaq maHtaH, bIQ qoD DujmajDaq maHegh…
Again, I recognize your poetic constraints, but in prose, and
assuming we can use bIQ qoD Duj as submarine, this
would be simple as 'ej yu'egh bIngDaq bIQ qoD Duj SuD wIDab
And we inhabit our SuD submarine beneath the waves.
bIQ qoD Duj SuD Hoch maH wIDabbejtaH,
DujmajDaq maHtaH, bIQDaq majaHtaH. bIQ qoD Duj SuD Hoch maH wIDabbejtaH, DujmajDaq maHtaH, bIQDaq majaHtaH.
naDev chaHtaH jupma' je,
Poetry again. In prose this would be better as 'ej tIjpu' juppu'ma'
And our friends have boarded. This definitely needs to be an
'ej, not a je.
Sumqu' je latlhpu' tu'lu'.
You've got two main verbs in this sentence; it doesn't work. The
je is a bit wrong too, since you're not repeating noun or
verbs from one sentence to another. I'd just drop any and
or also; the English doesn't use one. Maybe in prose it
would be jIlmaj chaH latlh law''e'.
'ej vogh QoQ muchchoHlu'pu'…
The vogh is there for a syllable?
[ QoQ muchlu'taH ] bIQ qoD Duj SuD Hoch maH wIDabbejtaH, DujmajDaq maHtaH, bIQDaq majaHtaH. bIQ qoD Duj SuD Hoch maH wIDabbejtaH, DujmajDaq maHtaH, bIQDaq majaHtaH. [ tujqu'choH QuQ. ] [ nughoS jagh. ] [ chay' jura? ] [ batlh maHegh! ] [ cha yIghuS! ] [ So'wI' yIchu'Ha'! ]
'ej ngeDtaHvIS yInmeymaj, Hoch 'utbogh Dochmey wIghaj.
DIghaj
SuDqu' chal, 'ej SuD bIQ je,
SuDqu' is green. I wouldn't use je here, since you're saying that one thing is SuD and the other is SuDqu'; that's not an also. The song is making a contrast between two things by saying how they have different colors. In ordinary Klingon language, sky and sea have the same color, though they are different shades of that color. If you want to maintain the contrast, you have to talk about shades, in which case you definitely can't use je.
I might change it up a bit and use SuD chal 'ach SuDqu' bIQ
The sky is SuD but the sea is very SuD.
bIQ qoD DujmajDaq maHegh… bIQ qoD Duj SuD Hoch maH wIDabbejtaH, DujmajDaq maHtaH, bIQDaq majaHtaH. bIQ qoD Duj SuD Hoch maH wIDabbejtaH, DujmajDaq maHtaH, bIQDaq majaHtaH. (If the lyrics don’t make it obvious, sing this to the tune of “Yellow Submarine” by the Beatles. The dialog taken from the beginning of “Conversational Klingon” is meant to take the place of the muffled speech heard before the final verse; if anybody ever ends up recording this, feel free to substitute other dialog, or cut out some lines to make it fit better, depending on the amount of time in the intervening measures between the chorus and verse.)
-- SuStel http://trimboli.name