1

Doyle Kryptonian on Supergirl

Monday, November 13, 2017  |  Comments: 5

So this is a little bit late, but I was catching up on watching Supergirl this weekend... my jaw hit the floor when I heard Melissa Benoist, a.k.a. Supergirl, speaking a couple of lines of Kryptonian. Not just gibberish, but my Kryptonian!


CW FOLKS, IF YOU ARE READING THIS:

I am happy to assist with any translations and pronunciations (including recordings) for any future episodes (contact info in footer). Also, a little shout out in the credits would be cool. :)


Sure the pronunciation was a bit off (she did surprisingly well, though, considering she had a couple of the hardest-for-English-speakers-to-pronounce words in the dictionary), and the grammar was dead wrong (I think they just replaced the English words for ones they looked up on the site)... but I don't care! That was still one of the most rewarding things to have happened to me, and I'm glad that the show creators took the time and effort to do that rather than just have her babbling gibberish.

The actress was speaking softly, but after listening several times (and accounting for some of the pronunciation issues), I'm 90% certain that what was said was this:

ehl fidh i ehrosh :divi — ehl kypzrhig i raogrhys

Word-for-word, this translates to:

star will make [possessive] journey/life light — star build [possessive] power

Now, that's completely ungrammatical in Kryptonian, but I think it's pretty easy to see what they were going for in this "Kryptonian meditation". In English, I would assume they wanted to say something like the following: "Star, make my journey/life light. Star, build my power."

Note: that's light the opposite of dark, not light the opposite of heavy. Also, the word "ehrosh" in Kryptonian is used for a journey but also for one's life, so there's a nice double-meaning going on there.

A Proper Translation

Just for fun, here's a proper translation of those sentences.

Quick aside — though I could use "ehl" (star) or "ehlo" (stars) — I'm going to take the liberty of changing "star" to "Rao" which is the name of Krypton's star/sun and the chief deity in Kryptonian religion; it makes a little more sense to me that she would be using "Rao" instead of just "star" in these old meditations. The sentence still reads just fine if you want to swap "ehl" back in place of "Rao", though. :)

Also, instead of just the imperative marker "kao", I decided to go with the polite imperative marker "sokao" (i.e., "please"), although you could probably make a case for either.

Adapted from Supergirl, Season 3, Episode 2 (2017)

Translation: Open     Gloss: Open Pop-up
.,rO, 
.,rao,
ɹa͡ʊ
Rao
ŸfiD 
sokaofidh
soka͡ʊfið
Polite\IMP-FUT\CAUS
nan 
nahn
nɑn
COP
W 
w
OBJ
x 
khuhp
xʌp
N\1S
i 
i
i
POSS
eroS 
ehrosh
ɛɹoʃ
journey/life
I 
ni
ni
OBJ2
:divi 
:divi
n̩divi
light
Rao, make my journey/life light.
.,rO, 
.,rao,
ɹa͡ʊ
Rao
ŸkypZRig$ 
sokaokypzrhiges
soka͡ʊkɪpʒ͡riges
Polite\IMP-build-PRS\PROG
w 
w
OBJ
x 
khuhp
xʌp
N\1S
i 
i
i
POSS
rOGRys 
raogrhys
ɹa͡ʊʀɪs
strength
Rao, build my strength.

Comments (5)

  1. Ed:
    Feb 02, 2018 at 08:44 AM

    Cool, I was wondering why is there a period and comma before rao?

    Reply

    1. Darren Doyle:
      Feb 13, 2018 at 03:48 AM

      Kryptonian writing marks the beginning of a sentence rather than the end (the period), and proper nouns (names) are indicated with a special punctuation. Both of these are carried over to the transcription; if you look you will see them in the Kryptonian writing (opening the gloss will cause punctuation symbols in the Kryptonian to gray out a bit so they stand out).

      Reply

  2. Ellen Tang:
    Oct 12, 2020 at 03:17 AM

    Why is /nahn/ used in the first sentence (but not the second)? Doesn't it mean "is/am/be?"

    Reply

  3. Elle:
    Oct 28, 2020 at 02:44 PM

    So I was wondering if you translated that time when Kara prayed? If no, could you please? (I don't remember which episode it was sorry)

    Reply

    1. Ellen:
      Oct 29, 2020 at 06:08 PM

      I believe this page is the translation for the prayer... assuming you're referring to the prayer/meditation from 3x02, Triggers, in which Kara asks for mental strength because Psi is giving her panic attacks, and then Alex walks in on her and asks what she's doing...

      Reply


Add a Comment





Allowed tags: <b><i><br><span><img><a>Add a new comment:


News Feed

Mar 09 2018  |  Comments: 6
Feb 07 2018  |  Comments: 10
Dec 04 2017  |  Comments: 4
Nov 12 2017  |  Comments: 5
Mar 14 2016  |  Comments: 7
Dec 18 2014  |  Comments: 0
Aug 21 2013  |  Comments: 6
Jul 29 2013  |  Comments: 1
Jul 21 2013  |  Comments: 5