I learn languages etymologically. English, Vietnamese, French, Spanish, Chinese, and Ebonics.
https://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/index.php?threads/new-word-thread.607157/post-13252192
Does German literature not translate well to English?
- Thread starter Northern
- Start date
I learn languages etymologically. English, Vietnamese, French, Spanish, Chinese, and Ebonics.
https://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/index.php?threads/new-word-thread.607157/post-13252192
I'm not a lay person. My native language is Vietnamese. The foreign missionaries created the modern phonetic alphabetic Vietnamese language. They gambled, and we won. Overnight the literacy jumped from 10% to 100%. But there is a hidden price. We lost the Chinese glyphs. I have to learn the etymology of Vietnamese from Chinese.
How about - tract. It's not that hard to look things up. I didn't even look that up.
That's why they call it understand, fathom.
They are cognates.
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Korean too gambled, badly in my opinion, divorcing itself of Chinese. Korean is so Chinese.
Northern
Hall of Fame
I don't think you are looking at things the way people understand language. What you are doing is recognizing "tread" or "tract" from "Betrat" because you already know "Betrat" means "Enter." But if you didn't, it would never ring a bell. But if you read, for example "Raconte" or "Edificio" there are no other words these two can match up to in the English language, or at least they are not as ambiguous as in the other case. My guess is that the reason this is so is because German and English derived from a common proto-language a very long time ago, so the elements they share (and they are not often full words but roots, suffixes, and so on) are more primitive and less recognizable through later evolutions, whereas whatever words English derived from Latin, and also French (and to a much lesser extent Spanish) were already full words so there was much less room for evolution and change.
Anyway, that's just the opinion of a non-etymologist.
True.
That only works if you know recount and edifice (both are French and not English words).
Maybe it rings a bell.
intractable: stubborn, obstinate.
You cannot get your tracks in (somebody's head).
https://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/index.php?threads/new-word-thread.607157/post-13252125
Northern
Hall of Fame
Well, actually both "edifice" and "to recount" are proper English words. I think "Edifice" is chiefly used nowadays in figurative terms (as in "The foundation of man's edifice is a sound sense of morality", or as a group of knights "recounting the misadventures of a certain gentleman" in an old tale.) But yeah, those words exist. Now, do most people nowadays know them? Probably not. But at least they are complete words, they are not roots evolved out of shape and obscured by prefixes and other cruft.
Your point about understanding is well taken though. Yes, that's a good use of etymology, and not that Betrat gamble.
Northern
Hall of Fame
Thank you for the recommends. I've heard of Gunter Grass but never read anything from him. Do you keep up with your German knowledge? The long words and the declensions look soooo scary.
A while back I chanced upon a literary blog post about someone reading a novel by Hermann Broch (I think "The Sleepwalkers") and your mention of the vaguely similarly named Heinrich Boll jogged that memory.
Well, actually both "edifice" and "to recount" are proper English words. I think "Edifice" is chiefly used nowadays in figurative terms (as in "The foundation of man's edifice is a sound sense of morality", or as a group of knights "recounting the misadventures of a certain gentleman" in an old tale.) But yeah, those words exist. Now, do most people nowadays know them? Probably not. But at least they are complete words, they are not roots evolved out of shape and obscured by prefixes and other cruft.
Your point about understanding is well taken though. Yes, that's a good use of etymology, and not that Betrat gamble.
recount is figuratively too, from the French raconteur. recount could just mean "count again".
https://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/index.php?threads/people-cant-count.642648/post-13308826
Northern
Hall of Fame
Wait a second. To recount is to tell a story, isn't it? At least in 1913 it was: https://www.websters1913.com/words/Recount
Yes it is: to tell a story.
I was using the Jedi mind trick on you.
But it is also true that recount means to count again.
Northern
Hall of Fame
This conversation is over. Know what I'm sayin?
I was using a George Orwell trick on you: stripping words of its poetic meaning and only remaining its mechanical / utilitarian meaning.
https://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/index.php?threads/new-word-thread.607157/post-13252843
Just beginning.
https://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/ind...ranslate-well-to-english.644823/post-13409162
Knowing etymology is knowing history. If you don't know history, you will be controlled, just like in 1984 - George Orwell.
Northern
Hall of Fame
Yes, thank you. The Newspeak Dictionary is double plus good. Seriously, pick up a Webster's New International specimen from the early 20th Century and marvel at Orwell's foreboding. Funny though, as Orwell in some sense can't be said to be particularly florid in his prose.
Northern
Hall of Fame
That quote comes from Santayana (who was a friend of Orwell, wasn't he?)
Wait, maybe he was a friend of Nabokov? Now I'm really bewildered. I have read too much Nabokov lately. Soon I will emulate Don Quixote and park in a van with dark panes by some public park.
Too creepy?
Not a quote, from my understanding when I read 1984. Something like "Those who control the past control the future."
stringertom
Bionic Poster
Language is a “use it or lose it” commodity and there are no commodities trading floors convenient to me presently. Check back with me after I win the lottery and become barnstormertom. Ditto for the French and the Italian I also picked up and lost due to all the bases I lived on with Dad moving 4 times in 7 years in my early years.
I’m not aware of the other guy Broch you mentioned. Nobel laureates Boll and Grass are the ones to read though. Two distinct styles...minimalist Boll and the magic realism of Grass. Almost a dichotomy l can compare to watching a Bergman and Fellini doubleheader...both will hit you hard but quite differently.
Gary Duane
G.O.A.T.
As/when GS awoke from fitful/uneasy/disturbed dreams one morning, he found himself in his bed, transformed into a hideous bug/insect (vermin). The translation you showed is accurate but clumsy. There is nothing more difficult than translating something masterful in one language into another. That's where the phrase "lost in translation" comes from.
I'm a native English speaker, American, but with British English speakers on my father's side. I did not start studying German until almost 30, every late, and it took me years of stubborn work to finally get fluent in the language, but only in reading. I read German almost as quickly and easily as English.
Don't judge German by clunky translations. Modern German is still more like older English. For instance, Sherlock Holmes translates beautifully to German, as counter-intuitive as that might sound. Alice in Wonderland was originally written in both English and German. There are some amusing problems. The Caterpillar, the one some of us know from Disney, always has a male voice. It is assumed that "it" is a "he". But in German it is Frau Raupe, because nouns have genders. Eine Raupe is feminine.
The German culture is very schizo for Americans because it seems stiff, formal and often cold. It's an illusion. Think of Beethoven. There was never a more emotional man, and no one ever wrote music more emotional. You have to either live in a culture to understand it, or master its art. The famous composer/pianist, Rachmaninov, had a face like stone. When you see his face, you see a mask. But no one ever wrote more romantic music, and he was so sensitive underneath the facade that he was almost ruined as a composer when young because of harsh and unfair critics.
max
Legend
Thanks. Right now I've got to tackle Xenophon's Hellenika. I have the admirable Landmark edition.
max
Legend
good points. I think dating back to even Mark Twain, Americans have a smoky image of German culture, not entirely reliable. I highly recommend, just for cultural study purposes, not linguistic of course, this title:
The German Genius: Europe's Third Renaissance, the Second Scientific Revolution and the Twentieth Century, by Peter Watson.
Im(moral) Winner
G.O.A.T.
Just read the original
Sysyphus
Talk Tennis Guru
Yes. My little punchline is flippant. But in a fundamental sense I think it's true, especially with regards to literary translation. This is gearing up to be an overly long ramble, but you've brought up an interesting subject.
Each language has its own idiosyncrasies, its particular rhythm, its own grammar, its unique meanings and its own sounds. Of course, strictly speaking you can nearly always relay the same meaning in different languages and describe the same state of affairs. And as a consequence retell the same plot in different tongues. But even so, this process is rarely seamless. Most words in a language do not have just one possible meaning but several, and these various different meanings very often do not overlap perfectly with the meanings of the translated word. This was the point of my little quip with r2 above. The original word he chose to translate my sentence can be used to refer to "translation" in German, but it can also be used to mean slightly different things than the English word. And that's why it's not unusual that if you translate a sentence from language A to language B and then back again, you may end up with something different than the original sentence.
But of course, the great literary writers work with so much more than just the strict meaning or matters of fact that they are describing (as I think you have also pointed out). The very language itself is in many ways the main focus of what they are doing – the rhythm, sounds, flow, sentence structure, the evocative effects of different words that go beyond their strict denotative meanings. The extreme example is poetry, which one could argue isn't really translatable at all. Every single word and their ordering have been chosen deliberately to create a particular effect, a particular sound and flow (and often rhymes) which cannot be replicated in any faithful way in a different language. As someone in the movie Paterson quips, reading poetry in translation is a bit like taking a shower with your raincoat on. But to a certain extent, the same is true of literary prose.
For instance, how could another language possibly capture the full essence of Fitzgerald's famous line: “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” You can relay the literal content of what he is saying, but the singular flow of the sentence and his purposeful alliteration would likely get lost.
Or Camus' equally famous opening of L'Étranger: “Aujourd’hui, maman est morte.” Simple sentence, but a pain for English translators nonetheless. The original English translation went with: “Mother died today.“ Simple, succinct and incorrect – 'mother' is far more distant, formal and colder than 'maman'. And this little change alters our view of what's to come (does Meursault love his mother?). What about 'mommy'? That would suddenly cast it in a childish light. 'Mom' would surely come closest, but it still loses a bit of the warmth and softness of the two-syllable maman. (Interestingly, the novel's most recent translator just kept the word 'maman', which was perhaps the best choice, but this raises some problems of its own.) And then there's the syntax…
All of this isn't to say that I think all translations are useless. I just think that any literary translation will in some fundamental sense be a different work from the original. If the translation is nonetheless competent and faithful not just to the literal meaning but also to aesthetics, then the reading experience can still be wonderful. Some guy I know of — a linguist and AI researcher — flat-out refuses to read fiction in translation, because of this idea of untranslatability. I think that's overly extreme, but luckily for that guy, he's literate in numerous languages.
You mentioned Nabokov earlier, which reminded me of this interesting little piece I stumbled across a good while back about Nabokov and Borges' contrasting views on translation. Clearly, Nabokov held some rather orthodox views on the matter, to the extent that "the clumsiest literal translation is a thousand times more useful than the prettiest paraphrase."
Unfortunately, none of this really touches on your original question (
) which is an interesting one.
movdqa
Talk Tennis Guru
I took German Language and Literature in Translation and we went through about a dozen books. I found that the books were fairly dry but the professor's comments really helped to explain what was going on. This was just after taking French Language and Literature in Translation and what a contrast!
Sysyphus
Talk Tennis Guru
I imagine. Would you care to elaborate?
mother
mommy
Mom
You forget Ebonics. What do I tell you about Ebonics as 1 of the 3 classical languages?
https://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/index.php?threads/new-word-thread.607157/post-13082224
Ebonics: mama
It exists in Chinese too.
姆媽 mǔmā mom; mother (dialect)
glyphs:
女 woman
母 teats (Ebonics: titties)
女 woman
馬 sounds like "mā"
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Sysyphus
Talk Tennis Guru
yes, if the translator wished to portray Mersault either as a gangsta rapper or an infant, I think 'mama' would have been an excellent choice
yes, if the translator wished to portray Mersault either as a gangsta rapper or an infant, I think 'mama' would have been an excellent choice
Not just for gangsta rapper or an infant, it's the equivalent of maman.
yes, if the translator wished to portray Mersault either as a gangsta rapper or an infant, I think 'mama' would have been an excellent choice
And there's "papa",
yes, if the translator wished to portray Mersault either as a gangsta rapper or an infant, I think 'mama' would have been an excellent choice
My bad. You spelled "gangster" correctly Ebonbicly.
heninfan99
Talk Tennis Guru
This is why no Anglo reporter can say what Thiem really said about Serena.
Northern
Hall of Fame
Yeah, a language is a huge burden and requires continuous maintenance. If you don't engage actively in its use it decays quickly. Gosh, I still can't believe Nabokov could write the way he did in English. I don't know if he abandoned writing in Russian after he started publishing in English, but his mastery of the English language is ludicrous. That's a whole different level of language knowledge and use, we are not talking about "Where is the station, please?" stuff.
You are so lucky to have been able to see so many different places in Europe. That's an experience few people have growing up, mostly reserved to military families and the kin of diplomatic attachés. I can imagine it would be an stimulating childhood!
Northern
Hall of Fame
They say learning a language as an adult is difficult. To do it at close to 30 years old must have taken a lot of patience and determination. And German, on top of that (not a particularly easy language to learn.)
What you say about older English works translating well to German is interesting. I'm wondering if it has to do with the more ponderous style using longer sentences with subsidiary clauses making it a more one-to-one correspondence. Sadly, I guess it doesn't work the other way round.
Yeah, Beethoven was the archtype of the tormented genius. But he was of Flemish extraction, wasn't he?
Meh, just a pointless reflection. Obviously there is a lot of passion in the German arts outside Beethoven too. Since you talk about music, one only has to look at Brahms or Schumann for example. I've long learned to not judge a book by its cover, and although I'm not familiar with Rachmaninov's face I have no trouble imagining the impassibility you mention.
Northern
Hall of Fame
To begin at the end, your post of course deals with my original question, just in a more general sense, which is fine. I just read the article you linked, very interesting. Nabokov, as great as he was, doesn't fail to come off as a petulant jerk or a moody zealot. I have read elsewhere about his contemptuous regard for editors, and this almost feels like something following on the same theme of preserving the author's freedom and exclusive right to creation in a literal way, when obviously a literal translation doesn't serve the purpose of attaining that mystical translation any more than creative adaptation using the translator's best literary sense does. But I can see why he would prefer that, as the second option could be seen as creative intromission, vs the former, which would be more of an utilitarian equivalence, limiting the translator to a more menial role and then leaving the reader perhaps to venture into the realm of speculation or further investigation. His “footnotes reaching up like skyscrapers” obviously pointing in this direction.Yes. My little punchline is flippant. But in a fundamental sense I think it's true, especially with regards to literary translation. This is gearing up to be an overly long ramble, but you've brought up an interesting subject.
Each language has its own idiosyncrasies, its particular rhythm, its own grammar, its unique meanings and its own sounds. Of course, strictly speaking you can nearly always relay the same meaning in different languages and describe the same state of affairs. And as a consequence retell the same plot in different tongues. But even so, this process is rarely seamless. Most words in a language do not have just one possible meaning but several, and these various different meanings very often do not overlap perfectly with the meanings of the translated word. This was the point of my little quip with r2 above. The original word he chose to translate my sentence can be used to refer to "translation" in German, but it can also be used to mean slightly different things than the English word. And that's why it's not unusual that if you translate a sentence from language A to language B and then back again, you may end up with something different than the original sentence.
But of course, the great literary writers work with so much more than just the strict meaning or matters of fact that they are describing (as I think you have also pointed out). The very language itself is in many ways the main focus of what they are doing – the rhythm, sounds, flow, sentence structure, the evocative effects of different words that go beyond their strict denotative meanings. The extreme example is poetry, which one could argue isn't really translatable at all. Every single word and their ordering have been chosen deliberately to create a particular effect, a particular sound and flow (and often rhymes) which cannot be replicated in any faithful way in a different language. As someone in the movie Paterson quips, reading poetry in translation is a bit like taking a shower with your raincoat on. But to a certain extent, the same is true of literary prose.
For instance, how could another language possibly capture the full essence of Fitzgerald's famous line: “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” You can relay the literal content of what he is saying, but the singular flow of the sentence and his purposeful alliteration would likely get lost.
Or Camus' equally famous opening of L'Étranger: “Aujourd’hui, maman est morte.” Simple sentence, but a pain for English translators nonetheless. The original English translation went with: “Mother died today.“ Simple, succinct and incorrect – 'mother' is far more distant, formal and colder than 'maman'. And this little change alters our view of what's to come (does Meursault love his mother?). What about 'mommy'? That would suddenly cast it in a childish light. 'Mom' would surely come closest, but it still loses a bit of the warmth and softness of the two-syllable maman. (Interestingly, the novel's most recent translator just kept the word 'maman', which was perhaps the best choice, but this raises some problems of its own.) And then there's the syntax…
All of this isn't to say that I think all translations are useless. I just think that any literary translation will in some fundamental sense be a different work from the original. If the translation is nonetheless competent and faithful not just to the literal meaning but also to aesthetics, then the reading experience can still be wonderful. Some guy I know of — a linguist and AI researcher — flat-out refuses to read fiction in translation, because of this idea of untranslatability. I think that's overly extreme, but luckily for that guy, he's literate in numerous languages.
You mentioned Nabokov earlier, which reminded me of this interesting little piece I stumbled across a good while back about Nabokov and Borges' contrasting views on translation. Clearly, Nabokov held some rather orthodox views on the matter, to the extent that "the clumsiest literal translation is a thousand times more useful than the prettiest paraphrase."
Unfortunately, none of this really touches on your original question (
And yes, I am even less surprised to see Borges (the creator of alternate universe stories) professing the opposite view here. BTW, I have started reading some of his Fictions stories and while I can see the imagination and the intelligent way he threads things, it is leaving me a little cold, not really enthralling me. Maybe I'm reading this at the wrong time and my appreciation of it will change later. The one thing I can already see is the beauty and precision with which Borges utilizes adjectives. One thing that irks me is the improper or superfluous use of adjectives that don't have a transformative effect, and Borges uses them sparsely but in profound ways. Nabokov is much more baroque here, but his adjectives are never superflous either. A true joy to read for me.
It does really seem translation is in a sense futile in its pursuit of perfection, but necessary and even worthy. But it's also interesting noting that even a work of literature, untranslated, can be many different works because of the interpretation intrinsic in the act of reading. There is already a translation of sorts taking place based on the reader's knowledge of language, his emotional attachment and experience of words (the connotation you mentioned,) and so many other things, to the chagrin of Monsieur Nabokov
OK, now I'm off to find a German translation of The Raven by Poe and I'll attempt to read it aloud even though I don't speak German, just for kicks.
stringertom
Bionic Poster
It mite have ben surpa.s.sed if their was a Chennaian delegation attached two a few uv my Dad’s bases.
Northern
Hall of Fame
You were in Channai as a kid too? I didn't know the US had bases in India. I thought it was just Europe and Japan.It mite have ben surpa.s.sed if their was a Chennaian delegation attached two a few uv my Dad’s bases.
stringertom
Bionic Poster
No,I meant it would have been better if my ca.s.st(e) of international friends in Europe had contained some Tamil Nadu natives...kinda like there was the one Indian dude in The English Patient.
Sysyphus
Talk Tennis Guru
To begin at the end, your post of course deals with my original question, just in a more general sense, which is fine. I just read the article you linked, very interesting. Nabokov, as great as he was, doesn't fail to come off as a petulant jerk or a moody zealot. I have read elsewhere about his contemptuous regard for editors, and this almost feels like something following on the same theme of preserving the author's freedom and exclusive right to creation in a literal way, when obviously a literal translation doesn't serve the purpose of attaining that mystical translation any more than creative adaptation using the translator's best literary sense does. But I can see why he would prefer that, as the second option could be seen as creative intromission, vs the former, which would be more of an utilitarian equivalence, limiting the translator to a more menial role and then leaving the reader perhaps to venture into the realm of speculation or further investigation. His “footnotes reaching up like skyscrapers” obviously pointing in this direction.
And yes, I am even less surprised to see Borges (the creator of alternate universe stories) professing the opposite view here. BTW, I have started reading some of his Fictions stories and while I can see the imagination and the intelligent way he threads things, it is leaving me a little cold, not really enthralling me. Maybe I'm reading this at the wrong time and my appreciation of it will change later. The one thing I can already see is the beauty and precision with which Borges utilizes adjectives. One thing that irks me is the improper or superfluous use of adjectives that don't have a transformative effect, and Borges uses them sparsely but in profound ways. Nabokov is much more baroque here, but his adjectives are never superflous either. A true joy to read for me.
It does really seem translation is in a sense futile in its pursuit of perfection, but necessary and even worthy. But it's also interesting noting that even a work of literature, untranslated, can be many different works because of the interpretation intrinsic in the act of reading. There is already a translation of sorts taking place based on the reader's knowledge of language, his emotional attachment and experience of words (the connotation you mentioned,) and so many other things, to the chagrin of Monsieur Nabokov
OK, now I'm off to find a German translation of The Raven by Poe and I'll attempt to read it aloud even though I don't speak German, just for kicks.
Yes, Nabokov sounds like quite the character in addition to being a bona fide literary genius. I must admit that he is one of those guys I have only heard lots about but have not yet gotten around to reading any of his works. Pale Fire and Lolita are on top of that to-do list, and it appears you had a great reading experience, which further reminded me that I should get on with it. Have you ventured (or plan to) beyond Lolita as well? I guess he has a fairly rich catalogue.
Personally, I'm a big admirer of Borges and the Fictions. He has a very inimitable and quirky style that he pulls off with great conviction, almost a kind of matter-of-fact bull****tery. But it's been a good five years or so since I read the Fictions and I was perhaps a bit too young, so I remember thinking that some of it flew over my head. He obviously writes with bombastic erudition, which is part of the charm but also makes it a bit demanding to pick up on all the references and so on. I can also see why you would experience it as a bit cold. For one, he's certainly a writer of ideas more than a writer of human relations. Speaking of translations, I've noticed that they matter a great deal with Borges as well. The sole current English translator, who has a deal with the Borges estate, is some guy named Andrew Hurley, and many (myself included) feel that his translations leave something to be desired. Many previous editions were translated by a fellow called di Giovanni, a translator who collaborated directly with Borges during his lifetime, and I find that his versions are often appreciably superior. He has carved out a voice that fits very well with the Borges style.
Your point any reading is always a kind of translation is a good point and I think accurate. That's in many ways the beauty of literature: it's a process of two minds melting together.
er4claw
Rookie
I've heard that Germans have a completely different conception of comedy than any other culture in the world. Comedy in Germany is rare and from what I've heard is very brutal and dark or heavily dependent on double meanings of words in German. Because of this a lot of non germans who spend time with Germans come to the conclusion that Germans have no humor since people rarely joke and the jokes don't make sense. Maybe its something similar with German literature, but I've never heard of that.
Northern
Hall of Fame
Reading tastes are very personal, you might not find Nabokov as engaging as I do. With Nabokov it is more about language and less about the intricacy of the ideas. Not that he is shallow by any means, just that the language is in intself a way to reinvent things and takes the center stage. He has been criticized by some for that. I don't know if you have read Eugenides (The Virgin Suicides) but if you have, his style does resemble Nabokov in some ways. I don't want to talk too much about Lolita because it's probably better you approach it openly and without biases. A couple of days ago I read a short story of his that he published in The New Yorker back in 1948 and which you can find online and it was brilliant, so yesterday I purchased the book with his story collection and plan to read that next after I finish what I'm reading now. Next will be Mary and Speak, Memory. Ada or Ardor scares me for now. The story I mentioned is publicly accessible: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1948/05/15/symbols-and-signs
Yeah, I get that matter-of-fact style from Borges you mention in some of the stories. It does serve to dissolve the veil of plausibility, I give you that. Part of me still wonders if the Anglo-American Cyclopaedia really exists. The fact he gets his real-life friend Casares involved is a nice touch. I wasn't aware of the translation issue. I think his state is managed by his widow, so who knows what motivations she has. I'm sure Nabokov would know.
Northern
Hall of Fame
Anyone who has watched enough Seinfeld or Simpsons knows how to speak Yiddish and doesn't know it yet.
