> Actually, I knew that. > > My question is this: if you were trying to translate it into Klingon, > would > you use Klingon concepts? > > love = not wanting to kill you > forgiveness = letting you live to experience your dishonor > turn the other cheek = present your unwounded side
Or just use the unfamiliar word and attempt to explain it in a sidebar (this is pretty common in philosophical writing in general). > Or would you try to keep with the original meanings? > > It's an interesting question, and it comes up because of all the /real/ > languages where this is a problem. For example, it's pretty hard to be > insulting (as Westerners know it) in Japanese. Things like m******f***** > would have been taken literally (before the broad westernization of Japan) > and would have been insulting, but not the way intended. > > That's not to say you can't be insulting in Japanese, but if you > translated > it literally into English and then said it to an American, you generally > would get a wierd look instead of an angry or hurt one. Who cares if I am > less than honorable, ya freak? On that topic are also the differences in degree between Japanese and American cultures. When translating "Princess Mononoke" to English Neil Gaiman had to have a Japanese cultural contact to fully understand what was going on. For example in one seen the monk was buying soup from a street vendor he says "this soup tastes like water" (direct translation), but to gain the proper emotional/cultural context the line was translated as "this soup tastes like piss". In this case a direct translation wouldn't have maintained the emotional context. This is actually pretty common issue when translating Anime and Manga. I remember a minor bruhahah when an issue of "Lone Wolf and Cub" had the child hero call a new character "Sis". The American fans thought this was the introduction of a long lost sister... but in Japan "sis" is used between friendly strangers (as well as "grandma"). I've heard of the same thing in reverse when translating American slang, especially Black slang to other languages "Sister" and "Brother" lose their specific definitions as they are applied to the community. In the case of Klingon I think that the biggest problem would be the simple fact that the people doing it wouldn't be able to truly "think" like Klingons - they would reference the cultural strictly through they're own perceptive filters. This is exactly the reason why single person-translations are often so bad: you really need people on both sides of cultural fence to extract proper context and meaning. Jim Davis ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/index.cfm?forumid=5 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/index.cfm?method=subscribe&forumid=5 Get the mailserver that powers this list at http://www.coolfusion.com Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
