A recent post seeking an Esperanto translation of Canterbury Tales caught my attention and got me thinking... what major cultural works are "missing" from Esperanto? Perhaps this asking this question marks me as still an Esperanto n00b, but I thought it worth asking on the forum.

A good example.... I noticed that Creative Commons "deeds" are available in Esperanto, but not the actual contracts themselves. (See Atribuite-Samkondiĉe 3.0 Neadaptita, for example.) I'm going to go out on a limb here and say this probably has to do with reducing legal risk on the part of the Creative Commons people. Similarly, I don't see any unofficial Esperanto translations of the GNU public license. So, my first thought is that Esperanto could use a high quality translation of Black's Law Dictionary. Sadly, this would probably be just as hard to translate as Chaucer in many ways. I think it would make life easier for anyone seeking to translate a legal document into Esperanto. It has been used in the past to introduce a standard legal lexicon to languages that (somehow) made it to the 21st century without one.

What books do you think Esperanto is most in need of seeing a translation of? For that matter, why do you think it's important to have an Esperanto translation of said work?

eojeff:What books do you think Esperanto is most in need of seeing a translation of? For that matter, why do you think it's important to have an Esperanto translation of said work?

Has the Tao Te Ching been translated? I presume it would have been. Seems like the ideal candidate. The Golden Ass is fun. And how about some more Hazlitt-style essays?

Otherwise I would say there ought to be more fun stuff, especially comics. Young adult fiction would also be a good genre. As I understand it quite a few non-young adults read YAF because they are fun to read.

The Lord of the Rings

I have La Hobito, and feel incomplete without its sequel.

(Also The Silmarillion because it's my favourite book)

ooooh and also Dracula because I love it, too.

Aĥ, you shouldn't have gotten me started; I'm a bit of a bookworm.

The Lord of the rings has been translated.

First post here . . . so I better not waste it . . .

The topic of Esperanto publications in general is interesting to me. For while I am a new Esperantisto, I am a published freelance writer in the parallel universe of English. I am also a journalism major so naturally the thought of eventually publishing in Esperanto is something I have thought a lot about.

I am actually somewhat dismayed at the lack of content in Esperanto. Where are all the books?! It seems to me that, comparatively speaking, there is very little out there and most of what IS out there is pretty old.

Furthermore, most of the books that exist are fiction, with a smattering of religious books. What about just . . . well . . . NORMAL books? The same kind of stuff that you can find in any other language? Books about computers and filmmaking . . . biographies . . . UFOs and the paranormal . . . basketball and golf . . . history, philosophy, music, collectible coins, and blackjack?

It just seems like there should be more in existence. And there should be more on the way.

One thing I can say though is that apparently a lot more has been translated than one would believe just by looking at the inventory at Esperanto-USA's online store (or anywhere else that I have found). In fact, it seems that some very important works have been translated . . . but are impossible to find.

I have always been a fan of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol." Just assuming that it had been translated, I looked far and wide for it. Did I find anything? Not at all.

Until, that is, I found a torrent with 215 individual translated works in PDF format. Among them was "A Christmas Carol." Why is this not regularly available in printed form? I have no idea. But it does exist.

Just see for yourself. . .

http://eo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristnaska_sonorado

The short answer to the point you make SPX is that the resources of the Esperanto movement are limited and the market tiny. We don't (as a practical example of the limits) have the funds to pay for translation rights for texts not out of copyright.

However I am very pleased to see that someone has bothered to post on the Net a revised translation of Christmas Carol. I found the later version by simply entering Kristnaska Kanto in a Google search.

I think that there are many older translations of classic works that would benefit from an revised (updated) version being made available and if this is only practical in electronic form it is certainly better than them being left to moulder in oblivion.

It's a pity about the dearth of 'normal' books as you put it. I have no idea as to what the solution to this problem would be, short of a philanthropic billionare funding this.

Almost any Esperanto speaker already speaks a native language that has more speakers than Esperanto. If I wanted a book on coins, I might have one (expensive, possibly low quality) book in Esperanto, and many, many choices for English books. Why would I buy the Esperanto one, when the English one is likely to be much better in its content, and much cheaper besides?

I do wonder if anyone has undertaken the task of curating a database of Esperanto works. For public domain or other lenient licenses, it could be a repository, and for published, protected works it could have information about publication. This seems like something that really ought to exist. A user-contributable index of things you can read in Esperanto, with downloadable files where applicable.

sudanglo:The short answer to the point you make SPX is that the resources of the Esperanto movement are limited and the market tiny.

I have heard that the market is tiny and that new books in Esperanto sell at a snail's pace. I don't get this though. My understanding is that a conservative estimate of Esperanto speakers is 100,000, with perhaps as many as two million people out there who have some understanding of the language. Esperanto is by nature something that you have to feel some passion for to pursue it, because the purely practical benefits aren't really in synch with the effort necessary to learn it. (I personally study it because I find the underlying philosophy of the language appealing and, well, I guess I just think it's cool that there's this constructed language out there flying under the radar with its own small but bustling community.)

So it seems to me that, while Esperanto's speakers are a tiny fraction of those of English, those speakers who do exist would be very active in their pursuit of the language and would gobble up just about anything that was written in it. As such, I don't see why it should be any big problem to sell, say, 10,000 copies of any particular work.

sudanglo:We don't (as a practical example of the limits) have the funds to pay for translation rights for texts not out of copyright.

I guess I'm wondering why there aren't more authors writing originally in Esperanto. My understanding is that, at least at one time, there were a fair number of writers who were primarily focused on producing content in the language. But from what I've been able to tell this was more of a historical trend that once existed rather than something that continues to this day.

As I said before, I'm a journalism major and a published freelancer. I eventually want to get around to non-fiction book writing. While I of course want to get published in English so that unimaginable riches can be mine, I also think it would be natural for me (once my understanding of the language is up to par) to translate those works into Esperanto so that those in the Esperanto community who can't read English would have access to them (and also just to contribute something to the movement).

I ran out of characters apparently so continuing my reply here. . .

sudanglo:However I am very pleased to see that someone has bothered to post on the Net a revised translation of Christmas Carol. I found the later version by simply entering Kristnaska Kanto in a Google search.

Can you tell me what the difference is in the revised version? And how can you tell which one you have?

sudanglo:I think that there are many older translations of classic works that would benefit from an revised (updated) version being made available and if this is only practical in electronic form it is certainly better than them being left to moulder in oblivion.

Why is that? Has the language changed that much over time or were those original translators not particularly skilled?

sudanglo:It's a pity about the dearth of 'normal' books as you put it. I have no idea as to what the solution to this problem would be, short of a philanthropic billionare funding this.

I think more Esperantists should just start putting pen to paper.