English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Mitch

21:00

POB is abused by people who don't know the answer saying it is up to an individual (because they as an individual don't know). But that's different from a question that can have multiple correct answers (eg "What is the meaning of 'post'?" It is not an opinion that there are many distinct meanings. And in the end for the English/Russian question, there is one definitive answer.

MetaEd

@Mitch So maybe you and I understand the question differently. I understand it to be: how is it possible English speakers can make sense of so many Russian words embedded in the novel. Not really a question about English speakers and their knowledge of Russian per se, but just a "my mind is boggled, how is this possible".

Mitch

@MetaEd Hm... the book was authored in English, yet uses Russian derivatives for some neologisms.

@MetaEd Sure, there is some reading between the lines. "What is this question asking?" I read the question as "Do English speakers understand the words?", not exactly "How do English speakers understand the words?" when the answer to both is that they don't.

MetaEd

It's in the title: "why/how".

Mitch

Sure

he answer to that is "OK your question is making an assumption that it is possible. The best response is that that is a false assumption, it is not"

MetaEd

Ah, but it is possible.

And it turns out the author specifically intended for it to be possible.

Mitch

21:07

If, again mutatis mutandis Italian/Spanish, then there would be a different response (so this one is definitely about English)

OK so a fuller answer is: 'No it can't be done by common roots/cognates, but rather by context

The OP is obviously not a native speaker of English, so benefit of the doubt.

They may well be native speaker of Russian, and so naturally curious about the situation.

It may be a bit of an immature question "What's up with bidets? What are they for?" but I think (as my answer goes towards) there is a reasonable question inside.

MetaEd

If, mutatis mutandis, the work had been written in Italian, the neologisms would not have been written in Spanish. The author's purpose was deliberate: use a vocabulary that the reader would not immediately comprehend, but would gradually learn over the course of reading the book.

In fact Russian would still have been a good choice and I wouldn't be surprised if the Italian edition preserves the vocabulary.

The tricky part would actually be in translating the novel to Russian.

It seems there is actually a paper on two Russian translations of the novel: jstor.org/stable/40870674?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

I can only see the first page.

Mitch

@MetaEd That is a matter of interpreting the intention of the author (except he probably stated this explicitly). But that is part of an unopinionated answer. The opaque word choice (opaque encapsulating the entire answer, that 'no English speakers don't recognize these words so they can only figure them by context') implies that they re understood only by context (or not as the case may be for those who needed the glossary like myself)

@MetaEd jstor has some hoops to jump through to get 'MyJstor' free access (I haven't done it)

MetaEd

I don't think the question has that much nuance. It's basically just asking how can English speakers understand the novel with all that Russian crap in the way.

Mitch

Just got through via my public library

MetaEd

The first page suggests the translators took very different approaches.

Mitch

21:18

@MetaEd I agree. I don't think the OP is very mature

MetaEd

Also the argument that the answer varies according to what language you choose kind of falls down when you consider that some of the Russian derived words can be understood by common roots/cognates.

Mitch

Oh? Which ones?

MetaEd

gazetta = newspaper, kot = cat, minoota = minute, hen-korm = Chicken Feed, millicent = policeman (militia/military), yarbles = testicles, tree = three.

The ones that jump out at me.

Furthermore many of the words that are Russian derived have meanings that seem to vary from the Russian, e.g. "soomka" = woman, from Russian "bag". Now maybe in Russian people refer to an "old bag" the way they do in English, maybe not.

Mitch

Then those particular words are understandable as much as they are, and the other opaque ones are not. That doesn't change the argument at all (about substitution)

MetaEd

If the question were, would English speakers be able to reason out the meaning of the word "strack" from context, you'd have an argument.

Followed by 189 other questions. Plus what about the other 52 words not Russian derived?

Mitch

21:27

>Writing in 1970 about some translations of his own works into foreign languages, Anthony Burgess had this to say about his own Clockwork Orange: "The Russians, of course, would have no difficulty at all; they would merely have to replace my Slavonic loan-words with English ones."

MetaEd

Yes, would make a great solution.

Mitch

> One must suppose, therefore, that twenty years later he was surprised to find himself writing a preface to a version by a Russian translator, V. Boshniak, who reject this method outright.

MetaEd

How did Boshniak do it? It clearly calls for creativity.

In the book when someone refers to a "Charlie" he means a chaplain ("Chaplin"). It's a whole lot of wordplay.

Mitch

This is followed by some Russian which, no irony at all, I am unable to read, but unfortunately cut and paste to Google Translate does'n't transfer the Cyrillic properly so doesn't work.

@MetaEd Oh. That was referred to in descriptions as one of Burgess's examples of word play, using Cockney Rhyming slang in addition to Russian, Malay, etc.

MetaEd

@Mitch Try this: quora.com/…

The criticism there is that the Sinelshikov translation actually is too easy to understand because of English loanwords in Russian slang.

Personally I like the Sinelshikov approach but it's a fair criticism and maybe a better way would have been to use English slang. Instead of мани for money, use до.

Mitch

21:35

Then Burgess would be mistaken in his assessment of the general populations involved and in his suggestion to swap Russian roots with English ones in the Russian version would not preserve his intent (opacity).

MetaEd

Eh, he used Russian slang, why shouldn't a translator do the same.

I had no idea he invented the word "sodding".

Mitch

But I don't know enough about Russian slang patterns to say. Maybe everyone who speaks Russian would understand English. But English speakers definitely do not understand the Russian ones.

MetaEd

Maybe he just used it.

Mitch

There is a continuum of translation styles, word for word, literal, keeping very close to original, mostly the original but replacing idioms with closets that preserves intent, 'free' translation.

and these two translators interpreted broadly the intent.

MetaEd

This reminds me of the discussion the other week about translating Harry Pottery.

Mitch

21:39

Also Jabberwockery

MetaEd

You know, Prisoner of Askaban, Chamber of Secrets, all that Harry Pottery stuff.

Mitch

@MetaEd Yeah. JKR had a Dickensian talent for inventing names out of whole cloth that 'feel' right.

'Hufflepuff' however was kind of a clunker

I read that Dickensian thing somewhere

MetaEd

@Mitch I'm trying to remember the translation example

Oh, it was the guy with the shiny head.

Mitch

HP and the Philosopher's Kidney Stone
HP and the Chambermaid of Secrets
HP and the Prisoner of Ask Me Another
HP and the Gobstopper of Fire
HP and the Order of the Fries With That
HP and the Half Blood-Sausage
HP and the Deathly Halitosis

@MetaEd He's bald?

MetaEd

yes

Mitch

21:48

Darwin?

MetaEd

1

Q: What does a "toothless walnut" mean?

I'm looking for the meaning of this sentence taken from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone: A little man in a top hat was talking to the old bartender, who was quite bald and looked like a toothless walnut.

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Offensive answer detected, toxic answer detected (164): Do "brownie points" derive from food-rationed "brown points"? by Brownie points expert on english.SE

Mitch

@MetaEd totally upvoted

MetaEd

@Mitch Did you see the movie that dramatized his writing of A Christmas Carol

Mitch

I remember vividly about Milan Kundera discussing translations of his own works. Supposedly he took great care with the translations and worked closely with the translator. He said about how in some translation readers complained that a particular word really sounded off/inappropriate/out of place (as though it were a poor translation), but he insisted that the corresponding term in his original had exactly that feel of being off/inappropriate/out of place

MetaEd

21:53

The Man Who Invented Christmas (film)

The Man Who Invented Christmas is a 2017 biographical drama film directed by Bharat Nalluri and written by Susan Coyne based on the book of the same name by Les Standiford. It stars Dan Stevens, Christopher Plummer, and Jonathan Pryce. The plot follows Charles Dickens (Stevens) at the time when he wrote A Christmas Carol, and how Dickens' fictional character Ebenezer Scrooge (Plummer) was influenced by his real-life father, John Dickens (Pryce). It was released by Bleecker Street in the United States on 22 November 2017 and in the United Kingdom on 1 December 2017. == Synopsis == Two years after...

Mitch

I heard that in general Dickens was kind of a jerk to his family

Feeds

0

Q: I've forgotten a word to describe a photoshoot event

For the life of me, I cannot recall the word. It is used to describe a photo shoot where there is a cattle-call for models--where a variety of images are taken all in one day (with various costumes/outfits etc). There's a specific word for it, that is not to be found on any of the fashion/photogr...

single-word-requests

Mitch

22:20

@MetaEd But no, I have not seen it.

MetaEd

22:37

@Mitch It's kind of remarkable.

Mitch

@MetaEd what is?

MetaEd

That movie.

Mitch

In what way?

In other news, I'm doing the Stack Overflow Comment Evaluator 5000.

I'm finding the comments are super polite almost entirely.

with one or two (out of thousands being only slightly in the direction of being miffed, but actually rude or unfriendly

@MetaEd This whole Clockwork Orange translation thing reminds me that Finnegan's Wake did it 50 years earlier to a much greater extrent

MetaEd

@Mitch Can you imagine translating that.

I can't even imagine reading it.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…