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Translation of a nonsense couplet...

od Oŝo-Jabe, 12. februára 2008

Príspevky: 11

Jazyk: English

Oŝo-Jabe (Zobraziť profil) 12. februára 2008 2:42:42

I've been trying to translate the following discordian nonsense couplet, with much difficulty:
To diverse gods Do mortals bow;
Holy Cow, and Wholly Chao::*.

The best translation I could come up with was this:
diaron klinis geulin';
sanktbovin', kaj tutbowin'.

(I don't think I did very well. For example is it okay to use both 'ge-' and '-in-' as I did in "geulin'"? Plus I wasn't sure to make "Chao" more like "chaos"[/hxaoso/kaoso] or "cow"[bovo] [with wich it rhymes in English])

Could I please have some input on how to improve it (and maybe advice on translating couplets in general...)

::* The Chao is a symbol in discordianism.

edit: and should the first sentence be "diar' klinis je geulin'" (who's causing whom to bend?)

eb.eric (Zobraziť profil) 12. februára 2008 4:16:12

Doesn't Chao still need to mean chaos in order for the poem to still make sense?

sergejm (Zobraziť profil) 12. februára 2008 6:47:31

You can't use "geulin'", you can uze "ge-"
only with plurals without "-ino": "geuloj",
not *"geulo", *"geulinoj" etc.

So, for exapmple , the folowing poem is incorrect:

Ho mia kara Esperanto!
Mi estas via geamanto.

RiotNrrd (Zobraziť profil) 12. februára 2008 7:09:53

One could make the case, I suppose, that a hermaphrodite could be referred to by "geulo". But, yeah, the ge- prefix implies a plural (normally).

Miland (Zobraziť profil) 12. februára 2008 10:26:01

Here's one attempt at such doggerel:

Al diversaj dioj homoj klinas
Eĉ bestoj kaj gasoj ne esceptas

erinja (Zobraziť profil) 12. februára 2008 19:29:16

sergejm:You can't use "geulin'", you can uze "ge-"
only with plurals without "-ino": "geuloj",
not *"geulo", *"geulinoj" etc.
Ge- is sometimes used in modern Esperanto with singular words (though not with the -in- ending). This use is not seen in classical Esperanto. I can't think of a specific reason to prohibit it, and I can understand both sides, for and against using ge- in this way. The use of singular ge- usage is becoming more common but we will see if it ever becomes really widespread!

Oŝo-Jabe (Zobraziť profil) 13. februára 2008 5:54:40

I think part of my problem (besides grammar) was me trying to translate the sentences to have the same amount of syllables as the original. Plus, I was trying to make two syllables rhyme rather than one.

I've tried to make an improved translation (including reflecting the chaos-Chao in kaoso-Kaoo rather than cow≈Chao, although because it's the proper name for the symbol it might be better left unchanged...):
Al diversdioj uloj klinas;
Bov' sanktas, kaj Kao' tutas

russ (Zobraziť profil) 22. februára 2008 7:07:57

Just a heads-up that if you're still trying to preserve the number of syllables and rhythm of the original (which has 8 and 7 syllables in the 1st and 2nd lines), your new one has problems (9 and 8 syllables) and so the rhythms don't match either. ridulo.gif

To diverse gods Do mortals bow;
Holy Cow, and Wholly Chao
xXxXxXxX
XxXxXxX

Al diversdioj uloj klinas;
Bov' sanktas, kaj Kao' tutas
xXxXxXxXx
XXxxxXXx

Poems whose lines end with an accent (as in this example in the original English version) are often tricky to translate to Esperanto, I've found.

Personally I'd stick with the standard word ĥaoso instead of creating the nonobvious "kaoo" just to be similar to the English original's "chao" which is a wordplay with "cow" that doesn't work in Esperanto anyway.

Here are a few of my attempts to translate it:

A rhythm-conserving translation that reasonably preserves the sense of the original but cheats by using the -ar suffix twice to rhyme:

Al dioj klinas la homar'
Tutħaosa sanktbovar'

Some translations that gave more attention to rhythm and rhyme than to literal translation:

Ni klinas al la di-kolos'
Sankta bovo, tutħaos'

Adoru diojn de l' epos'
Sankta bovo, tutħaos'

Adoru diojn kun patos'
Sankta bovo, tutħaos'

Oŝo-Jabe (Zobraziť profil) 23. februára 2008 7:15:42

Russ thank you for all the suggestions, I like your ideas. I made two that I like which preserve the syllable count, and (perhaps not that great because something gets lost in translation) use the original name of "Chao" (I'm not sure about grammatical correctness [especially of the first], or the rythm being the same though...):

Al diversa dioj klinu;
Sanktbov', tutChao* vidu.

Al diversa dioj klinu;
Sanktbov', kaj Chao* ĉiu.

*Ĉaŭ

Oŝo-Jabe (Zobraziť profil) 16. apríla 2008 20:13:56

I've decided on the following translation, but it doesn't necessarily have the same rythm...:

Al diversaj dioj klinu;
Sanktbov', kaj tutĈaŭ' ĉiu

Nahor