Mesaĝoj: 146
Lingvo: English
mnlg (Montri la profilon) 2009-septembro-02 19:55:26
ceigered:Isn't sc always like ŝ though? Or are my Italian sources really German/Medieval Anglo-Saxon spies?It is. The word I mentioned, however, followed a distinct evolution, and its correct pronunciation is debated. I happen to like the s+ĉ (which, along with s+ĝ, is not uncommon in the dialect of my region), but most dictionaries suggest ŝ.
The Accademia della Crusca seems to accept both versions. (link to pertinent article [it])
Mnlg, erinja and jchthys are awake at the same time as me... did you guys miss me that much that you decided to get up early? Or is my clock really not broken and it actually is 1.52am?my time zone is CE(S)T. It will be 1:52 in about... four hours
mnlg (Montri la profilon) 2009-septembro-02 20:26:03
LyzTyphone:What I believe, however, is that Esperanto has a role slightly different to natural language.Not to make too fine a point about it, but on the question of naturality of languages I would have a lot to say. I doubt that the Latin case endings sprouted out of a tree.
Great translator JEN Fu, once stated that good translation requires three qualities: 信, trueness; 雅, elegance; and 達, understandability. And if you ask me to rank them, I will put it as T>U>E.Even though I am not a professional, I have a certain experience of translation to and from the three languages I am fluent in (Italian, Esperanto, English). I would describe my method as 'meaning first, nuance second, style third'. The original meaning has to be preserved; and if the meaning has a special nuance, due to a particular choice of words that echoes in the literature of that language, or a manner of expression, this also should be conveyed, perhaps through a correspondent idiom in the target language. Lastly, the final result has to be rechecked so that it sounds proper to the target language and does not retain the influence of the previous language.
This process might become more difficult in a more constraining situation, as could happen when translating movie subtitles. Your final rendering has to fit on the screen and it has to be short enough to be read in a given amount of time, depending on the duration of that same text as pronounced in the movie. Different languages might need vastly different space or time. Usually English tend to need less space than Italian or Esperanto, even though this is not always true (A few months ago I saw a funny t-shirt with the text, 'Eri meglio da lontano', which would be translated into English as 'You looked better from a distance').
A similar problem with space limitations occurs also with Japanese comics (Manga). Japanese tends to be written vertically, and because of this, when translated into a Western language, the text tends to be interrupted and hyphenated a lot, making it more difficult to read, and in general offering less usable space.
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I am even less experienced in Asian languages than I am in translation; but my (distinct) impression is that Asian languages have numerous, overlapping layers of meaning and subtlety, making the whole process a lot harder. This page gives a good example about that, providing three distinct, and astonishingly different translations of the same passage from the Tao-te-ching (sixth paragraph from the top of the page).
In addition, I have something say about your example. It seems to me that actually those words have been "Italianized", that is, they are now new Italian words from Russian. Am I right? I wonder whether they are in Cyril or in Latin, and whether they obey grammatic rules of Italian?No, that's not the case. The words in question were lifted from Russian, transliterated from the Cyrillic to the Latin alphabet, but apart from that, used as-is, italicized, in order to set them aside from the normal flow of the text. They weren't adopted in the Italian language, and the average Italian would not recognize them. The purpose of this anecdote was to give you an example of a specific choice made by the translator, to include native language words without necessarily signaling a surrender. They were used sparingly, and their meaning was explained in a footnote, upon their first occurrance. It is my opinion that this mechanism did not impair the translation, but augmented it.
Oŝo-Jabe (Montri la profilon) 2009-septembro-03 02:03:35
LyzTyphone:@R2D2!Oh, I didn't read carefully enough! For some reason, I thought you were trying to make a negative phrase with "neniel ne." Oops!
Wow, that seems to legalize my use of "neniel ne" = affirmative use! Thanks!
LyzTyphone:@Oŝo-JabeIt is the rare antonym of "fi." "Fi" is like saying "For shame!" So the opposite would almost be "Laudable." Most of the officialness was supposed to come from "ja," and I think that "malfi" provides a way to get her politeness across, by turning even criticism into a half compliment.
Thank you for your advice!
I actually have never heard of "malfi", so that makes it unusual. Is that supposed to sound official, formal and authoritave though?
ceigered (Montri la profilon) 2009-septembro-03 08:58:32
erinja:And I felt it too Felt shocker all day, apparently REM sleep is good for the human bodyMe:And this isn't right at all. Mnlg, erinja and jchthys are awake at the same time as me... did you guys miss me that much that you decided to get up early? Or is my clock really not broken and it actually is 1.52am?I'm on my lunch break, mnlg should be going home from work shortly, you are totally up past your bedtime
@ mnlg:
wow only 4 hours difference... this is indeed a small world, is it not?
Back to the general discussion:
As mnlg said the fact we're dealing with Asian languages doesn't help. Unfortunately due to the whole east-west split for the better part of 2 millennia there are cultural nuances etc which work better in their original form - having a international language that encompasses all these different nuances is hard because it would be very complex and have a large vocabulary (e.g. extensive use of Japanese honorifics, funky European lexical classification that makes Chinese look like the simplest language in existance. Semitic word derivation (is that the right phrase?)).
But still... I do think there must be some way to translate the de arimasu... Maybe using additional words like 'ja', 'nur', 'tre' and 'tro' and the odd neologism more than usual?
E.g. Wilhelmina might say 'These acts are very bad ~ de arimasu'
"Tiujn agojn ja estas tre negativaj"
(rather than "Tiujn agojn estas tre malbona")
Additionally Wilhelmina is a cold person, she rarely adds emotional bias to her speech - e.g. it'd have to be pretty darn major for her to say 'horrible', 'disgusting', 'beautiful' or some other word that carries an opinion (if you know the plot of the light novels so far you'd know that yuji has just about been killed by her on several times, but rather than 'killing' she sees it as 'destroying' or 'removing' him)
(of course, where she would say such a clunky sounding phrase would be hard to tell... I mean, to be using de arimasu all the time you'd figure she is at least a very eloquent speaker).
gyrus (Montri la profilon) 2009-septembro-03 13:16:33
erinja (Montri la profilon) 2009-septembro-03 13:28:04
ceigered:Unfortunately due to the whole east-west split for the better part of 2 millennia there are cultural nuances etc which work better in their original form - having a international language that encompasses all these different nuances is hard because it would be very complex and have a large vocabulary.This is always true, no matter what. Of course it will be true to a greater extent when we are talking about cultural nuances between Asia and the West, and to a lesser extent when talking about the West only, but cultural nuances will be missed any time you translate from one culture to another. You will NEVER be able to translate it 100%. The important thing is to give someone a taste of the culture, an idea, enough to get them interested in learning about the culture in more depth.
Remember also that it works both ways. That is, in Asian translations of Western works, they must somehow translate nuances of Western culture. I don't know if you've read any Japanese translations of classic Western works, but that might provide some insight as well. We render Japanese culture in a certain way, in our Western writings. Perhaps the Japanese render Western culture in a certain way, that makes it understandable to them, and perhaps you can use this process in reverse, to some extent.
Back to your specific situation, I don't know about the story or the characters, but if a particular character is very "analytical", it is true that "negativa" might be a better word choice than "malbona". As we discussed before, there are lots of ways to make a suitable translation, if you think creatively. There is a place for neologisms but personally, I tread them as a last resort, and I wouldn't use a neologism for something like a grammatical intensifier.
patrik (Montri la profilon) 2009-septembro-03 13:49:12
gyrus:I was thinking of translating Death Note, would anyone be interested?I am interested. But I think I must first improve my Esperanto before doing such.
gyrus (Montri la profilon) 2009-septembro-03 13:57:27
patrik:My Japanese isn't quite good enough to do a complete translation from the manga, but I'm sure there are English versions which I could reference, but only as reference, as it's always better to get the nuance from the original.gyrus:I was thinking of translating Death Note, would anyone be interested?I am interested. But I think I must first improve my Esperanto before doing such.
LyzTyphone (Montri la profilon) 2009-septembro-03 18:32:11
@mnlg
I see. Still I wonder, are those Russian words all nouns, or are there also some adjectives or verbs, etc?
And I think our ideas about a good translation are essentially the same, just stated differently.
And just I said, you may break the rules in translation when you have a perfect reason doing so. And though I haven't read the copy you mentioned, I believe those Italian translators know what they are doing.
It's just in this case I don't really think "de arimasu" has to be left in, because:
1. We can produce approximately the same effect without it. (OK I admit we are still trying.)
2. A translation without it will be more understandable to someone who hasn't learnt Japanese.
3. (subjective) I personally feel it more natural, as I have never seen that done in Chinese translation of manga.
And I agree translating it will not be a easy task, since the gap between the two languages are so wide. But let's at least give it a try.
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ceigered:Additionally Wilhelmina is a cold person, she rarely adds emotional bias to her speech - e.g. it'd have to be pretty darn major for her to say 'horrible', 'disgusting', 'beautiful' or some other word that carries an opinion (if you know the plot of the light novels so far you'd know that yuji has just about been killed by her on several times, but rather than 'killing' she sees it as 'destroying' or 'removing' him)Yes sir! So what we are trying to present is: A cold , intelligent, analytical person; in an over-formal, official way; speaks to rebuke someone.
(of course, where she would say such a clunky sounding phrase would be hard to tell... I mean, to be using de arimasu all the time you'd figure she is at least a very eloquent speaker).
(Though I personally still wish to have some unique trait so that readers can easily identify her speech, it seems that not everybody here feels it essential. And I submit to majority's will.)
Let me sum up the ideas so far:
1. "Ja" or "tute" are good ways to go
2. She is probably the opposite to Bonlingvism: with a big vocabulary, and more analytical.
She may also like to use words that sound official (like "neakceptebla").
3. "malfi" for rebuke? I don't see politeness in the description above... But it may help the formality...?
4. (mine) Maybe we can sometimes do this to make it sound stronger?
5. (mine) "ajn"?
Applying the ideas above, the result so far:
Tiaj agoj ja estas tre neakcepteblaj, malfi.
How does that look? Please make comment~
mnlg (Montri la profilon) 2009-septembro-03 20:06:14
LyzTyphone:I see. Still I wonder, are those Russian words all nouns, or are there also some adjectives or verbs, etc?They were mostly appellatives, meant to indicate a common, typical Russian expression, or an otherwise Russian concept or object that helped set the story.
And I think our ideas about a good translation are essentially the same, just stated differently.Awesome!
It's just in this case I don't really think "de arimasu" has to be left in, because:In full honesty, I did not follow this 'de arimasu' incident thoroughly. To reply to your points: (1) I tend to agree that it might be rendered properly in Esperanto, but there might have been other reasons to keep it in. Sometimes a common expression in the original language, once translated in the target language can look or sound out of place or forced, and therefore lose its weight or importance. (2) As I said about the Russian words, all it takes is one footnote at its first appearance, to clarify its meaning once and for all. (3) I see, but on the other hand, perhaps its uniqueness was a reason to include it...
1. We can produce approximately the same effect without it. (OK I admit we are still trying.)
2. A translation without it will be more understandable to someone who hasn't learnt Japanese.
3. (subjective) I personally feel it more natural, as I have never seen that done in Chinese translation of manga.