one of the earliest sentences translated into Klingon
I was chatting with Lieven and it came up that I'm apparently in possession of a piece of Klingon language folklore which hasn't been documented anywhere that I could find. So I'm going to post it here for posterity. Years ago, Marc Okrand told me that when he was working on Star Trek III, before he got the final script with the lines he was supposed to translate into Klingon, he picked a number of lines from TOS episodes mostly involving Klingons, to have examples of the sorts of things he might be expected to translate. While working on developing the language, he translated these lines into Klingon to test out his ideas. (Since he likes to tell the same stories over and over again, maybe there's a recording of him telling this story.) He didn't explicitly say which lines, but he provided enough information for me to work out one of them, namely the following line from "Friday's Child": "The rare mineral topaline, vital to the life-support system of planetoid colonies, has been discovered in abundance here." You'll notice that every single word needed to translate this sentence is in TKD ("no bloody A..."), and in particular, the word {toplIn} appears in no other TOS episode. Furthermore, the word {mIDmey} survived the process of writing TKD to become the example for the plural suffix {-mey}. The word {yuQHom} also shows that {-Hom} already existed as a suffix, and although {rojHom} replaced it as the example in the body of TKD, it is found in the word lists in the back. (Since we know that {-pu'} was invented to retrofit the line {qama'pu' jonta' neH}, {-mey} was the only plural suffix at this point in Klingon's development. I also think it's fairly likely that once he was forced to make a plural suffix for beings, he decided to add one for body parts as a joke, as there was no reason for him to do so, unlike with beings.) Does anyone want to take a shot at reconstructing the Klingon version of this line, using words only found in TKD 1st edition (i.e., no Addendum)? (Since Klingon grammar and vocabulary was changed by the filming of Star Trek III, it's possible that the reconstruction won't be the same as the proto-Klingon version Okrand would've written, but I think the changes to Klingon don't affect the translation of this sentence and we can actually reconstruct the original, or something very close to it.) Once again: "The rare mineral topaline, vital to the life-support system of planetoid colonies, has been discovered in abundance here." -- De'vID
On 11/26/2021 8:27 AM, De'vID wrote:
Years ago, Marc Okrand told me that when he was working on Star Trek III, before he got the final script with the lines he was supposed to translate into Klingon, he picked a number of lines from TOS episodes mostly involving Klingons, to have examples of the sorts of things he might be expected to translate. While working on developing the language, he translated these lines into Klingon to test out his ideas. (Since he likes to tell the same stories over and over again, maybe there's a recording of him telling this story.)
He didn't explicitly say which lines, but he provided enough information for me to work out one of them, namely the following line from "Friday's Child": "The rare mineral topaline, vital to the life-support system of planetoid colonies, has been discovered in abundance here." You'll notice that every single word needed to translate this sentence is in TKD ("no bloody A..."), and in particular, the word {toplIn} appears in no other TOS episode.
I'm familiar with the story. I don't think the presence of the word *toplIn* points to that sentence being something he translated. He also gave us words for /kevas, t//rillium, radan,/ not because he necessarily translated lines, but because he took all the made-up Star Trekky foreign words and gave them Klingon equivalents. That said, if I were translating the line using only TKD and no post-TKD clarifications (like the fact that *law'* doesn't work for uncountable nouns), I might do it like this: *tlhIl qub 'oH toplIn'e'. yuQHom mID yIntaghvaD potlh. naDev toplIn law' tu'lu'.* Nowadays, of course, I'd use *vItlh* instead of *law'.* -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
Am 26.11.2021 um 16:43 schrieb SuStel:
I'm familiar with the story. I don't think the presence of the word *toplIn* points to that sentence being something he translated. He also gave us words for /kevas, t//rillium, radan,/ not because he necessarily translated lines, but because he took all the made-up Star Trekky foreign words and gave them Klingon equivalents.
Well, I'm not saying I'm right or if it means anything, but these examples - kevas, trillium, radan - were all things that appeared in episodes with Klingons. So I don't think it's right to say that he just translated "all the made-up Star Trekky foreign words". Marc Okrand explained in an interview that when he started with his work, he first got all the TOS scripts in which Klingons appeared, and he then translated anything related to those scenes, just to prepare for the movie, of which he did not know what to translate in the first place. Just look at one of those episodes, you'll quickly recognize a lot of words that exist in Klingon. (PS: this would be a fun project to make a list of words connected to the episode in which they first appeared.) -- Lieven L. Litaer aka the "Klingon Teacher from Germany" http://www.tlhInganHol.com http://klingon.wiki/En/StarTrek
On Fri, 26 Nov 2021 at 16:43, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
On 11/26/2021 8:27 AM, De'vID wrote:
He didn't explicitly say which lines, but he provided enough information for me to work out one of them, namely the following line from "Friday's Child": "The rare mineral topaline, vital to the life-support system of planetoid colonies, has been discovered in abundance here." You'll notice that every single word needed to translate this sentence is in TKD ("no bloody A..."), and in particular, the word {toplIn} appears in no other TOS episode.
I'm familiar with the story. I don't think the presence of the word *toplIn* points to that sentence being something he translated.
It's not *just* the word {toplIn}. It's {qub}, {tlhIl}, {potlh} (n), {yIntagh}, {yuQHom}, {miDmey}, {tu'}, {law'}, and {naDev}. Sure, he could've just looked at the sentence and then made up all the Klingon words without having translated it. I can't ever prove that he did. But the fact that {mIDmey} (and not just {mID}) appears in TKD shows that he did at least think about how to translate parts of it, like how to pluralise nouns.
He also gave us words for *kevas, t**rillium, radan,* not because he necessarily translated lines, but because he took all the made-up Star Trekky foreign words and gave them Klingon equivalents.
The episode "Errand of Mercy" introduced Kor. In that episode, the character Claymere says of Spock, "A Vulcan trader, perhaps. A dealer in kevas and trillium. Harmless to the Klingons." Words in TKD: {vulqangan}, {mech}, {chaq}, {ngev}, {qevaS}, {DIlyum}, {joch}, and of course, {tlhIngan}. A possible translation: {chaq vulqangan mechwI' ghaH. qevaS DIlyum je ngev. tlhInganpu'vaD jochbe'.} The episode "Elaan of Troyius" also had Klingons, and in it Elaan says, "They call them radans. The necklace is supposed to bring you luck. It is of little value. They are common stones." Words in TKD: {Dom}, {pong}, {ghIgh}, {Do'}, {lo'laH}, {nagh}, {qub}/{le'}/{motlh}. A possible translation: {bIHvaD Dommey lupong. DuDo'moHlaw' ghIgh. lo'laHbe'. naghmey le'be' bIH.} If he was only looking for Star Trekky words, he didn't have to provide the vocabulary to translate the entire lines. He told me that he translated some lines, but not which ones. I can't prove he translated this one, but the presence of every word in it in TKD seems like good evidence.
That said, if I were translating the line using only TKD and no post-TKD clarifications (like the fact that *law'* doesn't work for uncountable nouns), I might do it like this:
*tlhIl qub 'oH toplIn'e'. yuQHom mID yIntaghvaD potlh. naDev toplIn law' tu'lu'.*
Nowadays, of course, I'd use *vItlh* instead of *law'.*
{potlh} is only a noun in TKD. The verb was added in the Addendum. :-) -- De'vID
participants (3)
-
De'vID -
Lieven L. Litaer -
SuStel