Recently, I decided to start learning Klingon. As a practice, I started to translate the first few sentences of Sun Tzu’s the art of war. Although it looks right to me, I realize that, if I am in some way horribly mistaken as to how this language works, I would have no way of realizing this on my own. So, I am sending this to the mailing list, in the hopes that some good Samaritan could give me a pointer or two in my path to learning this fascinating language. English in quotes. “Laying Plans” chenmoH nabpu’ “1. Sun Tzu said: The art of war is of vital importance to the State.” wa’. jatlh Sun’tlhu: <<veSQeD potlhqu’ wo’vaD>>. “2. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected.” cha’. yIn Hegh je Soj ‘oH ‘ej QaDqu’ghach lujqu’ghach ghap Dev ‘oH. QeD DabuSHa’be’qu’. “3. The art of war, then, is governed by five constant factors, to be taken into account in one's deliberations, when seeking to determine the conditions obtaining in the field.” wej. veSQeD qum vagh qechmey, bIH Daqel ‘ej yotlhDaq Datu’DI’. Sent from my iPad
On 19 October 2017 at 14:19, Joseph Bell <joble02@icloud.com> wrote:
Recently, I decided to start learning Klingon. As a practice, I started to translate the first few sentences of Sun Tzu’s the art of war.
I would say that translating a book isn't really the best way to practise a language you don't already know very well. This is especially true if the book you're translating is itself already a translation. I'm assuming you're not translating directly from the Chinese, as your translation indicates you're following the English you posted too closely. (Also, as an aside, the Art of War has been translated already, though apparently it's stuck in publication limbo.)
Although it looks right to me, I realize that, if I am in some way horribly mistaken as to how this language works, I would have no way of realizing this on my own. So, I am sending this to the mailing list, in the hopes that some good Samaritan could give me a pointer or two in my path to learning this fascinating language. English in quotes.
“Laying Plans”
chenmoH nabpu’
I can't parse this at all. Is {nab} intended to be a noun or verb here? What is its relationship to the verb {chenmoH}?
“1. Sun Tzu said: The art of war is of vital importance to the State.”
wa’. jatlh Sun’tlhu: <<veSQeD potlhqu’ wo’vaD>>.
Remember object verb subject. What is the subject of {potlhqu'}? What role has {wo'vaD} play here?
“2. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected.”
cha’. yIn Hegh je Soj ‘oH ‘ej QaDqu’ghach lujqu’ghach ghap Dev ‘oH. QeD DabuSHa’be’qu’.
"It is a matter of..." is an English expression. I feel using {Soj} follows this a bit too closely. What does it *mean* to say something is a matter of life and death? Express that. I would also suggest to express using verbs the idea you're apparently trying to express by using nouns with {-ghach}. Note that we have a word {taw} for "road". Is the last sentence intended to be an imperative? Right now, it just says "You do *not* ignore this science" (not that you *shouldn't*).
“3. The art of war, then, is governed by five constant factors, to be taken into account in one's deliberations, when seeking to determine the conditions obtaining in the field.”
wej. veSQeD qum vagh qechmey, bIH Daqel ‘ej yotlhDaq Datu’DI’.
Your sentence seems incomplete. "You consider them, and as soon as you find it in the field..." [something seems missing here]. See TKD 6.2.2 about subordinate clauses. Also, maybe you meant to use an imperative somewhere. Note that "field" in this case is probably {che'ron} rather than {yotlh}.
Sent from my iPad
_______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org
-- De'vID
On 10/19/2017 9:19 AM, De'vID wrote:
“Laying Plans”
chenmoH nabpu’
I can't parse this at all. Is {nab} intended to be a noun or verb here? What is its relationship to the verb {chenmoH}?
Joseph is not considering the order of a basic Klingon sentence: OBJECT - VERB - SUBJECT. He's applying suffixes more or less correctly but putting the words together in English order. *chenmoH*/make;/*nabpu'* Joseph used the wrong plural suffix here: use *-mey* for things that don't use language and aren't body parts. *nabmey*/plans./ Putting this together in OVS order, we get *nabmey chenmoH.* BUT! We haven't conjugated this; right now it says /he/she/it/they make plans./ If that's what you're after, fair enough, but what you're probably saying is that plans are made and you're not specifying who makes those plans. For that you need the indefinite subject suffix, *-lu': nabmey luchenmoHlu'*/plans are made; someone makes plans./ BUT AGAIN! /Make plans/ is a very English way of saying this. I'm not sure if we can even use *chen* to refer to abstract things taking form. Why not simplify this? *nablu'*/someone plans./ You see now why translating is harder work than producing original thoughts.
“1. Sun Tzu said: The art of war is of vital importance to the State.”
wa’.jatlh Sun’tlhu: <<veSQeD potlhqu’ wo’vaD>>.
Remember object verb subject. What is the subject of {potlhqu'}? What role has {wo'vaD} play here?
Remember also that *'* is a consonant, not punctuation. That *'* in *Sun'tlhu*'s name isn't pronounceable, unless maybe you happen to hiccup while saying it.
“2. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected.”
cha’. yIn Hegh je Soj ‘oH ‘ej QaDqu’ghach lujqu’ghach ghap Dev ‘oH. QeD DabuSHa’be’qu’.
"It is a matter of..." is an English expression. I feel using {Soj} follows this a bit too closely. What does it *mean* to say something is a matter of life and death? Express that.
I think *yIn Hegh je Soj 'oH* hits it on the nose and is quite good. This isn't just an English expression; Klingon's idiomatic *Soj* /matter, concern, affair/ is exactly this.
I would also suggest to express using verbs the idea you're apparently trying to express by using nouns with {-ghach}.
Agreed. You're sticking *-qu'* in there to satisfy the requirement that a suffix come between the verb and *-ghach*, but you don't really mean them. Also, *QaD* normally means /be dry;/ the meaning of /be safe/ is slang. The style of /The Art of War/ is invariably made out to be formal and dignified, a style not conducive to using slang. For non-slang alternatives, consider words like *QobHa'ghach* and *Qanlu'.*
Note that we have a word {taw} for "road".
Is the last sentence intended to be an imperative? Right now, it just says "You do *not* ignore this science" (not that you *shouldn't*).
Your last sentence also cuts out a lot of what the original is saying. If you're going to translate, don't skip parts because they're hard. You've made a good start. I strongly recommend trying to express yourself in Klingon before translating the words of others. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
SuStel:
I strongly recommend trying to express yourself in Klingon before translating the words of others.
SuStel is definitely right. Speaking from my own personal experience, another good idea would be to write a few sentences with the word of the day, and post them here. It is much easier for someone to help you, if you write just 3-5 sentences, than trying to translate an entire passage. If you do this every day, you will be surprised by the things you will learn, and the progress you will make. ~nIghma' On Thu, Oct 19, 2017 at 4:51 PM, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
On 10/19/2017 9:19 AM, De'vID wrote:
“Laying Plans”
chenmoH nabpu’
I can't parse this at all. Is {nab} intended to be a noun or verb here? What is its relationship to the verb {chenmoH}?
Joseph is not considering the order of a basic Klingon sentence: OBJECT - VERB - SUBJECT. He's applying suffixes more or less correctly but putting the words together in English order. chenmoH make; nabpu' Joseph used the wrong plural suffix here: use -mey for things that don't use language and aren't body parts. nabmey plans.
Putting this together in OVS order, we get nabmey chenmoH. BUT! We haven't conjugated this; right now it says he/she/it/they make plans. If that's what you're after, fair enough, but what you're probably saying is that plans are made and you're not specifying who makes those plans. For that you need the indefinite subject suffix, -lu': nabmey luchenmoHlu' plans are made; someone makes plans.
BUT AGAIN! Make plans is a very English way of saying this. I'm not sure if we can even use chen to refer to abstract things taking form. Why not simplify this? nablu' someone plans.
You see now why translating is harder work than producing original thoughts.
“1. Sun Tzu said: The art of war is of vital importance to the State.”
wa’. jatlh Sun’tlhu: <<veSQeD potlhqu’ wo’vaD>>.
Remember object verb subject. What is the subject of {potlhqu'}? What role has {wo'vaD} play here?
Remember also that ' is a consonant, not punctuation. That ' in Sun'tlhu's name isn't pronounceable, unless maybe you happen to hiccup while saying it.
“2. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected.”
cha’. yIn Hegh je Soj ‘oH ‘ej QaDqu’ghach lujqu’ghach ghap Dev ‘oH. QeD DabuSHa’be’qu’.
"It is a matter of..." is an English expression. I feel using {Soj} follows this a bit too closely. What does it *mean* to say something is a matter of life and death? Express that.
I think yIn Hegh je Soj 'oH hits it on the nose and is quite good. This isn't just an English expression; Klingon's idiomatic Soj matter, concern, affair is exactly this.
I would also suggest to express using verbs the idea you're apparently trying to express by using nouns with {-ghach}.
Agreed. You're sticking -qu' in there to satisfy the requirement that a suffix come between the verb and -ghach, but you don't really mean them.
Also, QaD normally means be dry; the meaning of be safe is slang. The style of The Art of War is invariably made out to be formal and dignified, a style not conducive to using slang.
For non-slang alternatives, consider words like QobHa'ghach and Qanlu'.
Note that we have a word {taw} for "road".
Is the last sentence intended to be an imperative? Right now, it just says "You do *not* ignore this science" (not that you *shouldn't*).
Your last sentence also cuts out a lot of what the original is saying. If you're going to translate, don't skip parts because they're hard.
You've made a good start. I strongly recommend trying to express yourself in Klingon before translating the words of others.
-- SuStel http://trimboli.name
_______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org
SuStel:
I strongly recommend trying to express yourself in Klingon before translating the words of others.
SuStel is definitely right. Speaking from my own personal experience, another good idea would be to write a few sentences with the word of the day, and post them here. It is much easier for someone to help you, if you write just 3-5 sentences, than trying to translate an entire passage. If you do this every day, you will be surprised by the things you will learn, and the progress you will make. ~nIghma' On Thu, Oct 19, 2017 at 5:51 PM, mayqel qunenoS <mihkoun@gmail.com> wrote:
SuStel:
I strongly recommend trying to express yourself in Klingon before translating the words of others.
SuStel is definitely right.
Speaking from my own personal experience, another good idea would be to write a few sentences with the word of the day, and post them here.
It is much easier for someone to help you, if you write just 3-5 sentences, than trying to translate an entire passage. If you do this every day, you will be surprised by the things you will learn, and the progress you will make.
~nIghma'
On Thu, Oct 19, 2017 at 4:51 PM, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
On 10/19/2017 9:19 AM, De'vID wrote:
“Laying Plans”
chenmoH nabpu’
I can't parse this at all. Is {nab} intended to be a noun or verb here? What is its relationship to the verb {chenmoH}?
Joseph is not considering the order of a basic Klingon sentence: OBJECT - VERB - SUBJECT. He's applying suffixes more or less correctly but putting the words together in English order. chenmoH make; nabpu' Joseph used the wrong plural suffix here: use -mey for things that don't use language and aren't body parts. nabmey plans.
Putting this together in OVS order, we get nabmey chenmoH. BUT! We haven't conjugated this; right now it says he/she/it/they make plans. If that's what you're after, fair enough, but what you're probably saying is that plans are made and you're not specifying who makes those plans. For that you need the indefinite subject suffix, -lu': nabmey luchenmoHlu' plans are made; someone makes plans.
BUT AGAIN! Make plans is a very English way of saying this. I'm not sure if we can even use chen to refer to abstract things taking form. Why not simplify this? nablu' someone plans.
You see now why translating is harder work than producing original thoughts.
“1. Sun Tzu said: The art of war is of vital importance to the State.”
wa’. jatlh Sun’tlhu: <<veSQeD potlhqu’ wo’vaD>>.
Remember object verb subject. What is the subject of {potlhqu'}? What role has {wo'vaD} play here?
Remember also that ' is a consonant, not punctuation. That ' in Sun'tlhu's name isn't pronounceable, unless maybe you happen to hiccup while saying it.
“2. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected.”
cha’. yIn Hegh je Soj ‘oH ‘ej QaDqu’ghach lujqu’ghach ghap Dev ‘oH. QeD DabuSHa’be’qu’.
"It is a matter of..." is an English expression. I feel using {Soj} follows this a bit too closely. What does it *mean* to say something is a matter of life and death? Express that.
I think yIn Hegh je Soj 'oH hits it on the nose and is quite good. This isn't just an English expression; Klingon's idiomatic Soj matter, concern, affair is exactly this.
I would also suggest to express using verbs the idea you're apparently trying to express by using nouns with {-ghach}.
Agreed. You're sticking -qu' in there to satisfy the requirement that a suffix come between the verb and -ghach, but you don't really mean them.
Also, QaD normally means be dry; the meaning of be safe is slang. The style of The Art of War is invariably made out to be formal and dignified, a style not conducive to using slang.
For non-slang alternatives, consider words like QobHa'ghach and Qanlu'.
Note that we have a word {taw} for "road".
Is the last sentence intended to be an imperative? Right now, it just says "You do *not* ignore this science" (not that you *shouldn't*).
Your last sentence also cuts out a lot of what the original is saying. If you're going to translate, don't skip parts because they're hard.
You've made a good start. I strongly recommend trying to express yourself in Klingon before translating the words of others.
-- SuStel http://trimboli.name
_______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org
On Thu, Oct 19, 2017 at 9:51 AM, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
Also, *QaD* normally means *be dry;* the meaning of *be safe* is slang. The style of *The Art of War* is invariably made out to be formal and dignified, a style not conducive to using slang.
For non-slang alternatives, consider words like *QobHa'ghach* and *Qanlu'.*
In Joseph's defense, he's not the first to make that mistake. Okrand himself slips up a few times in paq'batlh and uses *QaD* in this sense.
You've made a good start. I strongly recommend trying to express yourself in Klingon before translating the words of others.
Sometimes it can be hard to think of what you want to write, and so translating something you like is easier than coming up with something creative on your own. A lot of my earliest translations were lines from TV and movies, and my Klingon skills turned out... well, I think I mostly do okay. But yes, something formal with longer sentences like Sun Tzu is probably a bit much to start with.
On 19 October 2017 at 15:51, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
On 10/19/2017 9:19 AM, De'vID wrote:
“2. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin.
Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected.”
cha’. yIn Hegh je Soj ‘oH ‘ej QaDqu’ghach lujqu’ghach ghap Dev ‘oH. QeD DabuSHa’be’qu’.
"It is a matter of..." is an English expression. I feel using {Soj} follows this a bit too closely. What does it *mean* to say something is a matter of life and death? Express that.
I think *yIn Hegh je Soj 'oH* hits it on the nose and is quite good. This isn't just an English expression; Klingon's idiomatic *Soj* *matter, concern, affair* is exactly this.
I think this example illustrates why it's so important to translate from the original language. The couplet in Chinese is: 死生之地，存亡之道 life-death-[possessive]-ground exist-perish-[possessive]-road "(It is) the ground of life and death, the road to existence and perdition." First, I expect the translation to preserve the couplet structure of the original. That is, this pair of sentences should be expressed using a pair of sentences in Klingon, such that they have identical grammatical structure and parallel nouns (life/exist, death/perish, ground/road). Second, the English translation already loses the ground/road parallel of the original (matter of/road to vs. ground of/road to). A road is something which sits on the ground, and allows movement on the ground. "Road" also means "path" (in the abstract sense of a course of action), while "ground" also means "basis" (something which is a support of or necessary condition for something else). The phrase "a matter of life and death" is a familiar English expression (it even has a dictionary entry: http://www.dictionary.com/browse/matter-of-life-and-death--a ). It doesn't merely mean "the subject under consideration involves life and death", it means "this is an issue of urgency". The English translator has decided to be a little loose with the translation here, and used an English phrase with a built-in meaning already known to an English-speaking audience, but which isn't a literal translation of the Chinese. This is fine; it's a matter of aesthetics. But the Klingon {Soj} is too literal a translation of the English. It says that life and death is the issue under consideration, but doesn't carry the sense of urgency of the English, nor the original meaning of the Chinese. The meaning here isn't merely that war is a topic which concerns life and death, it's that it is a topic which is of *fundamental* (in the Chinese) or *urgent* (in the given English translation) importance when dealing with life and death, and that sense is (in my view) missing in {Soj}. But anyway, translation requires an understanding of both the source and target languages, which is a reason why translation isn't a good way to learn a language. -- De'vID
On 10/19/2017 11:37 AM, De'vID wrote:
I think this example illustrates why it's so important to translate from the original language.
Oh, sure. I wasn't even attempting to address what the Chinese original had to say; I figured Joseph was just translating from an English translation, and my comments address the meaning found /there./ I'd /love/ to translate /Beowulf/ into Klingon... but first I'd have to learn Old Norse to get it right... -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
On Oct 19, 2017 15:19, "De'vID" <de.vid.jonpin@gmail.com> wrote: On 19 October 2017 at 14:19, Joseph Bell <joble02@icloud.com> wrote:
Recently, I decided to start learning Klingon. As a practice, I started to translate the first few sentences of Sun Tzu’s the art of war.
I would say that translating a book isn't really the best way to practise a language you don't already know very well. ... Was there more? Did you want to send a revision? I hope our comments did not scare you off. It was a good first effort, and everyone needs to iterate their understanding before they get the hang of things. -- De'vID
participants (5)
-
De'vID -
Joseph Bell -
mayqel qunenoS -
nIqolay Q -
SuStel