(urth) BotNS in German
Lisa Schaffer-Doggett
harlekin at earthlink.net
Mon Dec 6 09:08:55 PST 2004
Not allowing a language to change is the surest way to make it
irrelevant. That's why all the moaning about the death of the english
language makes me laugh. IMO it's as vital a language as ever because
it's mutable. An obsession with words is like loving a dress more than
the woman it adorns. Fortunately for us, Wolfe loves the woman AND has
exceptional taste in dresses.(this metaphor of course is gender
reversible) As far as German and English, they are closely related in
both vocabulary and in sentence structure, closer than english is to
any romance language. With a little digging I think a good translation
would be doable. Where there are latin, greek, and hebrew words, just
use them as is. The equivalents to obscure english words should be
easily available, (as in the barbican example). Getting the right feel
might be hard, since German is such a straightforward language, and
Wolfe is anything and everything but. Then, if it was easy, someone
probably would have done it by now, huh?
Don
On Monday, December 6, 2004, at 02:14 AM, James Wynn wrote:
> Regarding the problems in translating Wolfe in to other languages, is
> it the
> case that French and Germans *do not* borrow from other languages? I
> understand that the French have a governmental standards board the
> determines whether words are "French" or not but does this prohibit
> French
> or Germans from using them in literature?
>
> I ask this because in "Castle of the Otter/Days" Wolfe compares his
> use of
> obscure words to the use of science fictiony made-up words. Would there
> really be a problem with using a word like "barbicon" if no exact such
> word
> existed in German?
>
> ~ Crush
>
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