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Translation of proper nouns

fra jcuttsIV,2008 4 7

Meldinger: 7

Språk: English

jcuttsIV (Å vise profilen) 2008 4 7 23:56:13

Here's a question I have never gotten a clear, reliable answer to. If you are translating a piece of text, and that text includes the a proper noun that is a in both languages, is the word translated? My example is the game Portal. If I was to try to translate the name of this game to Esperanto, would I call it "Pordego," "Portal," or is there some other rule that I don't know?

RiotNrrd (Å vise profilen) 2008 4 8 01:23:21

I would use the name as it really is, rather than changing it to something else. That is, however, purely my own preference, and others may do things differently.

awake (Å vise profilen) 2008 4 8 11:18:54

RiotNrrd:I would use the name as it really is, rather than changing it to something else. That is, however, purely my own preference, and others may do things differently.
I generally agree with Riotnrrd. This is usually my preference also. When I do Esperantize a proper name (sometimes it seems more natural to do so than at other times) in written Eo, I'll usually put the original in parentheses just after it for clarity.

Taciturn_ (Å vise profilen) 2008 4 8 12:32:09

Well, not sure if there`s any word to mark Portal in Esperanto but basicly it`s something but a door sometimes.It can with no confusion turn into a circle drawn on ground,or beaming spot on a wall, or better a brillaint energetic sfere floating just easy like that in the air.i mean not each and every Pordego is surely a Portal.So my choice is to let it go with the final "o",added to esperantize it:"Portalo".

jcuttsIV (Å vise profilen) 2008 4 9 22:59:31

I like the sound of "Portalo," but someone who didn't speak English would assume that, because it's not a word in Esperanto, that it is a word in English. Outside of this conversation, I've never herd the word "Portalo" before, and that could create some problems, especially if the person is trying to learn English.
Another question, albeit similar, is how to determine how to change names between languages. For example, my name is James, in English. Would I spell my name Jxames, to get across the idea of the English "j" sound, or would I spell it James, because that's what my legal name is?
Yet another, my e-mail address is at yahoo.com, how would I pronounce the "y" if I was trying to tell someone my e-mail address?

erinja (Å vise profilen) 2008 4 10 13:18:20

jcuttsIV:For example, my name is James, in English. Would I spell my name Jxames, to get across the idea of the English "j" sound, or would I spell it James, because that's what my legal name is?
Yet another, my e-mail address is at yahoo.com, how would I pronounce the "y" if I was trying to tell someone my e-mail address?
If you wanted to translate the sound of James, you would have to write it as Ĝejms. Remember that the letter ĵ makes a zh sound (like the s pleasure). But you could feel free to call yourself James. You would just explain to Esperanto speakers that it is pronounced like "ĝejms". You can call yourself anything you want to call yourself - James, Ĝejms, Jakobo (the official Esperanto translation of your name), Jaĉjo (the Esperanto nickname form of your name), or anything else. For example, Claude Piron was a famous Esperanto speaker, but his first name was always given as Claude. He didn't call himself "Klad" or "Klaŭdo" or any of the other Esperanto forms he might have chosen. As I said, it's a matter of personal preference, and no one will judge you based now which route you decide to take.

Regarding pronunciation of letters, letters that don't exist in Esperanto have Esperanto names, so you can easily give them in spellings of addresses etc.

y - ipsilono
w - duobla vo, germana vo [rare], or vavo [seen more commonly in Europe than in the US - most Americans say "duobla vo"]
x - ikso
q - kuo

erinja (Å vise profilen) 2008 4 10 14:51:07

I guess it depends on your regional accent, but plenty of people would also pronounce the name as "Ĝejms"!

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