Well I originally learnt Esperanto because I suck at languages. But then I grew to love the language itself. Now I'm not an experienced or even completely fluent Esperantist, but I'm not a beginner either, so perhaps my input will weight in. I have a large physical Esperanto book collection that I have over the last year acquired through trade, purchase, and other means, and I've read through about 50% of them, one of my favourites is called, from memory "Malplimultoj de Ĉinio" Or the Minorities of China. I first read it while on a flight to China, and it is of a very high quality, written by a Chinese Esperantist (whose I've been informed has passed away) I reckon if I looked I could find a book that covered the same topic in English, but this one gave me a look at the lives of the malplimultoj from the perspective of a Chinese Esperantist. I'm personally willing to pay top dollar for an Esperanto book, if it's the right book.

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

Whilst the grammar has remained essentially the same there has been an explosion in the lexicon such that a good proportion of texts from the early 1900's may profitably be revised with the replacement of cumbersome and not very specific compound words with their modern more precise variants, and some usage would now be considered archaic, or at least stilted.

Also it was much more difficult in the days when photocopiers and the internet did not exist for authors to get their texts vetted/edited by speakers of other languages. Even as late as the 1930's some pretty poor translations were being published, judging by some books in my personal library from that period.

Nowadays there is no excuse for not having any translation reviewed and edited before publication.

And nowadays with NPIV and PMEG and computer-searchable corpus databases, there are very clear and easily accessible normative standards - even so there are some areas in the language where evolution is still under way, so that there may be a divided opinions as to what is acceptable (for example the use of certain prepositions before infinitives).

teoa:The Lord of the rings has been translated.

Well, I had better get to buying a copy.

Evildela:Well I originally learnt Esperanto because I suck at languages. But then I grew to love the language itself. Now I'm not an experienced or even completely fluent Esperantist, but I'm not a beginner either, so perhaps my input will weight in. I have a large physical Esperanto book collection that I have over the last year acquired through trade, purchase, and other means, and I've read through about 50% of them, one of my favourites is called, from memory "Malplimultoj de Ĉinio" Or the Minorities of China. I first read it while on a flight to China, and it is of a very high quality, written by a Chinese Esperantist (whose I've been informed has passed away) I reckon if I looked I could find a book that covered the same topic in English, but this one gave me a look at the lives of the malplimultoj from the perspective of a Chinese Esperantist. I'm personally willing to pay top dollar for an Esperanto book, if it's the right book.

This is a pretty good example of what I was talking about.

Personally, I see two reasons to either write originally in Esperanto or for Esperantists writing in their native tongue to translate their works into Esperanto:

1. To support the Esperanto community and to make works available that may not be available in other national languages. For instance, a book written by a Chinese/French/Arabic etc writer that never gets translated into any other language is impossible to read for most of the world. But if that writer is an Esperantist, and translates the work into Esperanto, then it opens it up to a whole new group of people from all corners of the earth.

2. To write from an Esperantist's perspective, as you mentioned.

sudanglo:Whilst the grammar has remained essentially the same there has been an explosion in the lexicon such that a good proportion of texts from the early 1900's may profitably be revised with the replacement of cumbersome and not very specific compound words with their modern more precise variants, and some usage would now be considered archaic, or at least stilted.

Thanks for the response. That makes sense.

Other than A Christmas Carol, are you aware of any other translations that have been recently revised?

I've said it before (on other threads) and I'll say it again... organized crowd sourcing of Esperanto translation work would do the movement a lot of good. Public domain and liberally licensed works could be translated to and from Esperanto a little bit at a time by people of differing skill levels.

I don't know of any open source web-based translation software that could facilitate such an endeavor, or I might be willing to host it myself. It would be hard to organize, but it would be fun once it got rolling. Any thoughts?

SPX:1. To support the Esperanto community and to make works available that may not be available in other national languages. For instance, a book written by a Chinese/French/Arabic etc writer that never gets translated into any other language is impossible to read for most of the world. But if that writer is an Esperantist, and translates the work into Esperanto, then it opens it up to a whole new group of people from all corners of the earth.

2. To write from an Esperantist's perspective, as you mentioned.

You missed some other important reasons. Your first reason relates only to translations, for example.

William Auld, a well-known Esperanto writer (who was nominated several times for a Nobel Prize in literature, but never won). Auld was once asked why he wrote in Esperanto. If I remember correctly, his answer was something having to do with big fish and small ponds - though not in those words exactly! Essentially he said that in English, his work would be likely to be lost in the shuffle, but in a small community like Esperanto, his work could get some recognition.

People write in Esperanto because they enjoy its expressive capabilities. People write in Esperanto because they want to practice their linguistic skills and challenge themselves by translating something that doesn't translate easily (see the translation thread in this forum!). Maybe they like writing poetry anyway, so they try out the capabilities of Esperanto in poetry.

At any rate, I wouldn't call it a specific goal of writing something from an Esperantist's perspective because we don't think of ourselves that way - do I write things in English in order to express things from an English speaker's perspective, for the benefit of other English speakers? That wouldn't make a lot of sense. A writing from an Esperantist's perspective would be writing something in your national language about Esperanto, for non-Esperantist consumption. Anything conversation between Esperantists is default "from an Esperantist's perspective"; if anything, if I read something by a Chinese Esperantist (for example), I would be looking to learn the *Chinese* perspective on something (because I could just ask myself, or ask an Esperantist from some other country, for the "Esperantist's perspective", right?)

People write in Esperanto because they want to use the text for a reason. They want to present a play at an Esperanto event - so maybe they write one. I wanted to do an Esperanto seder, but there was no haggadah translation in Esperanto - so I made my own.

I wouldn't underestimate that "bigger audience" factor, though. Practically anything that is done in Esperanto will be noticed by more people than something done in a large language. If you form a band and make a CD in Esperanto, you won't really make any money on it, but you'll probably come closer to breaking even than you would if you and your friends made an English speaking band and made a CD. No one will notice one more CD in English. People notice a new Esperanto CD. The market is smaller, and standards for success are much lower.

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Crowd sourcing of translations - quality control is a real problem. As I mentioned before, enthusiasm and talent (and free time) don't necessarily all come in the same person.

Having said that, it's my understanding that the Harry Potter translation was done by a group, and several other important translations were done by small groups. In my experience such things work best when the group is carefully selected, not just any old person who volunteers.

A translation of literature into Esperanto with a random group would likely not lead to a great translation. Even relatively simple websites translated into Esperanto are often poorly done, with poor word choice and grammatical errors.

To get back to the original question:

Anything by Dumas
"Age of Reason" by Thomas Paine
Farenheit 451 (not sure of its copyright status)
Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa (not sure of it's copyright status)
Anything by Dickens

Not many of you probably know who he is, but I was particularly surprised to see a couple of books by Allan Kardec had been translated: "Kio estas Spiritismo?" and "La Libro de la Spiritoj." I haven't read them, but am aware of Kardec and his connection to 19th century religious movement of spiritism. Those should be some interesting reads.

The Flemish Esperanto League sells The Count of Monte Cristo in its online shop.

Some Dickens has certainly been translated.

But that stuff that's still in copyright - no, I don't think so. It's not easy to get permission for a legal Esperanto translation. My understanding is that The Lord of the Rings was probably done without permission (printed in Russia, I believe).

erinja:
William Auld, a well-known Esperanto writer (who was nominated several times for a Nobel Prize in literature, but never won). Auld was once asked why he wrote in Esperanto. If I remember correctly, his answer was something having to do with big fish and small ponds - though not in those words exactly! Essentially he said that in English, his work would be likely to be lost in the shuffle, but in a small community like Esperanto, his work could get some recognition.

I have actually thought about that and can understand it as a reason to produce a version of whatever you write in Esperanto. But, at least when it comes to journalistic non-fiction (what I am interested in writing), the time and expense necessary to produce a book means there really needs to be some serious possibility of a return. Research, travel, etc can get expensive, therefore I would make sure to write BOTH an English version and an Esperanto version.

The Esperanto version would essentially be a contribution to the community. If I make some money, then that's great. But it would be imperative to have an English version that would hopefully go on to sell thousands (or millions!) of copies.

If you're writing fiction for fun then I imagine the situation would be different.

erinja:At any rate, I wouldn't call it a specific goal of writing something from an Esperantist's perspective. . .

I dunno. I was just rolling with Evildela on that one. Apparently he enjoyed reading something "from an Esperantist's perspective." So I guess he found some value in it.

erinja:People write in Esperanto because they want to use the text for a reason. They want to present a play at an Esperanto event - so maybe they write one. I wanted to do an Esperanto seder, but there was no haggadah translation in Esperanto - so I made my own.

Makes sense.

erinja:I wouldn't underestimate that "bigger audience" factor, though. Practically anything that is done in Esperanto will be noticed by more people than something done in a large language. If you form a band and make a CD in Esperanto, you won't really make any money on it, but you'll probably come closer to breaking even than you would if you and your friends made an English speaking band and made a CD. No one will notice one more CD in English. People notice a new Esperanto CD. The market is smaller, and standards for success are much lower.

Also makes sense.

I would like to see a serious push for quality though, with books, music, movies etc all being top quality. Movies are expensive to make but you can make a respectable low-budget film if you know what you're doing.

This actually kind of reminds me of the Christian media universe. They have their own books, music, movies, etc. Some of the writers and musicians are actually very good. Most of the movies are pretty terrible, though.