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English
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Part 2 of Conlang Dialogue: The 100 (CW)
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Published:
2019-06-13
Words:
116
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1/1
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Conlang Dialogue: The 100, Episode 202

Summary:

This is the created language dialogue from episode 202 of the CW's The 100. (Please note: This post contains spoilers for episode 202 of The 100.)

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Work Text:

OCTAVIA
I am Octavia of the Sky People and I seek safe passage.

TRANSLATION
Ai laik Okteivia kom Skaikru en ai gaf gouthru klir.

WARRIOR
Put your knife down, girl.

TRANSLATION
Sen yu swis daun, gada.

WARRIOR
Let him go or we shoot.

TRANSLATION
Teik em gonot raun o osir na trig yu op.

WARRIOR
Don’t take another step.

TRANSLATION
Nou sen yu fut daun nodotaim nowe.

INDRA
Hold your fire.

TRANSLATION
Hod yo trigplei op.

OCTAVIA
I am Octavia of the Sky People…

TRANSLATION
Ai laik Okteivia kom Skaikru…

INDRA
I am Indra of the Woods Clan. What do you want?

TRANSLATION
Ai laik Indra kom Trigeda. Chit yu gaf?

INDRA
Wait.

TRANSLATION
Hod op.

Notes:

It's been years since I did the translations for this episode, and I see many things I would do differently now. For starters, I probably would have come up with a different expression for "Hold you fire" than using the literal verb hod and trigplei for "fire". I'm not happy with that. Also, I think I misremembered what I was doing for "Woods Clan" as I was doing it. I was initially using -geda the way I used -asar (or -VsVr) in Dothraki, meaning that Trigeda would be literally "Tree Clan". I think I reanalyzed that, though, and came to think of trigeda as "woods"—which would leave nothing for "clan". It'd be fine to say "I am Indra of the Woods", but I would need to know that that's what I was doing. I think I mixed myself up.

The long and short of it is this. If I was going to use tri as a stand-in for "woods" (an evocative metonymy), I should've said Trikru, and the word for "woods" would be trigeda. If I was going to use the actual word for "woods" in the translation, I should've said Trigedakru. If I was going to use -geda for "clan", I should've been consistent with that, and never used kru in things like Sangedakru, Floukru, etc. As it stands, it's not consistent.

That said, this type of messiness is what you expect in a natural language, so I'm fine with it. I'm just fairly certain that I didn't intentionally translate that line as "I am Indra of the woods".

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