Questions tagged [translation]
Questions about translations of works, including how meanings and word choice differ in different languages, and the impact and reasoning of different translations.
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Has Verne's Tribulations of a Chinaman in China ever been translated into Chinese?
As the title suggests, Jules Verne's novel Tribulations of a Chinaman in China (1879) is about the adversities and trying events experienced by a Chinese person. It is quite plausible that Verne's ...
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Why the many accompanying Latin translations of King James VI's elegy for Sidney?
The unexpected death of Philip Sidney in 1586 prompted public outpourings of grief comparable perhaps only to those following that of Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997. This grief found expression in ...
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English translation of a quatrain from the "Rubaiyat" of Omar Khayyam
Is there an English equivalent of this quatrain from the Russian version of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam?
В этом мире глупцов, подлецов, торгашей
Уши, мудрый, заткни, рот надежно зашей,
Веки плотно ...
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Who is "Stan Streeson" in Rutherford's translation of Don Quijote?
In chapter LXII of the second part of Don Quijote by Cervantes, ("Which deals with the adventure of the enchanted head, together with other trivial matters which cannot be left untold"), the ...
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What is the original of this poem Kenealy supposedly translated from Bengali?
The poems (to use the word loosely) of the Irish writer and lawyer Edward Kenealy contain this alleged translation from the Bengali:
Song in the Metre of the Original
A maid there is more bright than ...
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Why does Masha address Wild-Eye as "Parmuska"?
In The Midwife by Katja Kettu, the central character, Wild-Eye, rescues a young Skolt girl named Masha from being killed by the SS. For the rest of the book, Masha addresses Wild-Eye as "Parmuska&...
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What is the original of the Saadat Hasan Manto short story translated as "Rude"?
I have been reading Saadat Hasan Manto's Bombay Stories, a compilation translated from the Urdu by Matt Reeck and Aftab Ahmad (2012; New York: Vintage, 2014). Alongside the English translations, I've ...
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Names in The Water Margin
I'm reading Lowe's 2009 revision of J. H. Jackson's 1937 translation of the classic Chinese novel The Water Margin. The revisions make a point of removing some of the anglicisations from Jackson's ...
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Is the title best translated "A Dollhouse", "A Doll House" or "A Doll's House"?
In the foreword to his translation of Henrik Ibsen's plays, Rolf Fjelde explains that the title of the 1879 play is A Doll House:
There is certainly no sound justification for perpetuating the ...
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What - if anything - was Artaud trying to achieve with his odd translation of Through the Looking Glass?
Antonin Artaud was a French theatre practitioner who is sometimes associated with the surrealists. Among his ideas was a desire to get "beyond" the limitations of language and to a freer ...
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What differences are there between the editions of Grossman's translation of Don Quixote?
Putting aside the physical (like the cover, flaps etc.), what, if any, differences are there between these three editions of Edith Grossman's translation of Don Quixote? Are the annotations the same ...
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Has complete Moravia's "Racconti romani" been translated to English?
At Internet Archive one can find a book with the title Roman tales, which is in fact a selection of Moravia's Racconti romani translated to English by Angus Davidson and published in 1959. In words of ...
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Did Lord Byron fluff his Greek in his poem beginning 'Maid of Athens, ere we part'?
One of Lord Byron's most famous poems appears, in the earliest editions of his works, under the simple title of 'Song', but is now more widely know by its first line, 'Maid of Athens, ere we part'. ...
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Is Plarr's 'Epitaphium Citharistriae' a translation?
Victor Plarr is most famous for a short poem called 'Epitaphium Citharistriae', which reads as follows:
Stand not uttering sedately
Trite oblivious praise above her!
Rather say you saw her lately
...
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Meaning of the "quips" from Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita
In Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, Koroviev - one of Woland's entourage - does a deal with a housing chairman to rent an apartment for his master. As he counts out the money, he makes two ...
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Unique words/vocabulary - Sufficient or necessary condition to determine original source?
Suppose we have two texts that are two different languages of the same story. One is the original, one is a translation. We wish to determine which one was the original. Among the more useful data ...
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What are the Bengali original texts of the poems which Tagore has translated in Stray birds?
I have been reading Stray birds by Tagore.
This link says that some poems in there are translations of the poems in Kanika. Do any records exist which maps the English verses to the original bengali ...
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Why is this line about prophecy in book 2 of the Odyssey thought to be "spurious"?
In my translation of the Odyssey by Emily Wilson, she translates part of a speech concerning prophecy by Eurymachus at the end of book 2 as this:
You know many ancient forms of wisdom,
but if you ...
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In Homer's Odyssey, how can the one-eyed Cyclops have multiple brows?
When Odysseus meets the Cyclops, the text never explicitly states that he has only a single eye. However, the unfolding action in which Odysseus and his crew blind the Cyclops by pushing a stake into ...
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Why do authors present originals as translations?
I read the following passage in the book Is that a Fish in Your Ear?, and the part about originals presented as translations got me wondering why authors do this:
Are readers in fact able to ...
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What was the original meaning of "rolling their eyes"?
While reading War and Peace translators use variants of the phrase "rolling their eyes" in odd places. For example, one character is described as "rolling their eyes in terror". ...
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What form of Formality does Kikuji originally use when talking about Chikako Kurimoto in chapter two?
I am reading Thousand Cranes (千羽鶴, Senbazuru) by Yasunari Kawabata at the moment after finding the slim booklet in my late grandfather's library.
In chapter two, in english titled The Grove in the ...
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How are the Chekov passages handled in the translation of 1Q84?
I'm curious about the Chekov passages which Tengo reads aloud to Fuka-Eri.
Presumably they are in Japanese in the original. Were they copied from an existing Japanese translation of Chekov?
In the ...
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How did Leo Tolstoy approve Maude's English translation of War and Peace? Did he speak good English already?
It is widely known that Maude's English translation of War and Peace was approved by Tolstoy himself. How did Tolstoy approve it, and did he know and speak English?
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What was Koestler's opinion of Hardy's translation of Darkness at Noon?
It is a well-known story that the original German manuscript of Darkness at Noon was presumed lost until relatively recently (2015), well after Koestler's death. The English translation by Daphne ...
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What does the Sanskrit word "abhithiya" mean in the 2022 Booker Prize Winner The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida?
I'm applying to be the Chinese translator of the 2022 Booker Prize Winner The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida. The publishing house asks me to undertake a sample translation. While completing the task I ...
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"Hamlet" reference in "Crime and Punishment": translator's invention?
I am reading Pevear & Volokhonsky's translation of Crime and Punishment. In part II, chapter 6, Raskolnikov is at the "Crystal Palace" restaurant, where he runs into the clerk Zamyotov ...
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Does the original Russian prose in The Foundation Pit by Andrey Platonov sound unusual/unconventional to Russian speakers?
I am reading Robert Chandler, Elizabeth Chandler and Olga Meerson's translation, specifically the 2009 revised version, of Platonov's 'The Foundation Pit', and it has struck me that the prose sounds ...
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Full English translation of Eiji Yoshikawa's novel Musashi
Is there a full English translation of the novel Musashi (『宮本武蔵』) by Eiji Yoshikawa? The one usually available from Charles Terry is abridged.
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Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin, the “lost” chapter 10 in German
Is there a German translation of chapter 10 of Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin? The English one is available in ISBN 9780691019048."
Pushkin destroyed chapter X of Eugene Onegin, leaving only the ...
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English translation of Corpus Hippiatricorum Graecorum
I'm trying to find a translation of HIPPIATRICA, Hippiatrica Berolinensia, preferably
an interlinear Greek/English version. I'm especially interested in chapter 20 and references to the Greek word &...
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Were new illustrations made for the "SCRAM" picture in translations of Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator?
In Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, the Vermicious Knids first appear as five blobs in elevators, which then contort themselves into letters: S, C, R, A, M, respectively. The original book ...
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Where exactly does Tófa fit into the Saga of Týrfingr, is she the same individual as Sváva?
The wikipedia page for Tófa states shes is the Wife of Angantyr and mother of Hervor:
Tófa (Tófu) is the wife of Angantyr and mother of Hervor in Norse mythology. She is mentioned only once the ...
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Why is "warm" removed in the translated English title of Eberhardt's "In the Shadow of Islam"?
Isabelle Eberhardt's book Dans l'Ombre Chaude de l'Islam has a title whose direct English translation would be "In the Warm Shadow of Islam". My guess is that the word "chaude", ...
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Why did Urquhart choose "neck of a goose" in his English translation of Gargantua?
In Rabelais' Gargantua, in Chapter 13, we find a discussion on the best means to wipe one's bum.
You can find Urquhart's translation here. I am specifically interested in the conclusion:
But, to ...
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What is the Ukrainian equivalent of a community college?
At one point in Voroshilovgrad, Injured and Herman go from the old airport to what's referred to in the books as the community college dorms.
I'm slightly confused by this translation, since I don't ...
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Who translated the 1995 Penguin Popular Classics version of "The Phantom of the Opera"?
I recently started reading the 1995 Penguin Popular Classics version of The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux. While reading it, however, I noticed that there is no attribution printed in the book ...
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Why is this chunk of the Decameron Day 3 Story 10 left untranslated?
In the Decameron Web full text of the Decameron and English, which uses the Rigg (1903) translation and is hosted by Brown University, a significant chunk of Day 3 Story 10 is left untranslated:
***...
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Why is it so important to Aias that he die in the light as opposed to the mist in "The Iliad"?
In Book XVII of The Iliad, when Patroclus is killed and Zeus has turned the tide to the favor of the Trojans, we have this statement by Aias:
Aias and Menelaos also saw that the victory was passing ...
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Is this instance of "little girl" a translation error in "The Magician of Lublin"?
There's a scene in The Magician of Lublin (part six, section 5) where Yasha is playing cards with Herman, a shady character in Warsaw.
Yasha allowed him to perform several tricks: the trick with the ...
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Has the Maltese poem "Fuq Għoljiet Dingli" ("On Dingli Cliffs") by Victor Fenech been ever translated into any other language?
I've been reading some of the poems of the collection Ċirasa (Under the Cherry Tree) by John Peter Portelli, available at the author's website with a translation to English.
I especially liked the ...
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How much did Alfred the Great translate himself?
I just heard that Alfred the Great, the famous 9th-century king of Wessex who is sometimes said to be the first founder of "England" as a country, was also a translator of literature. ...
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What does "reet fain" mean in Poseidon's message to Agamemnon in the Iliad?
In Book XIV of The Iliad, when Poseidon is encouraging the Greeks while the Trojans are attacking their ships, he says this to Agamemnon while disguised:
But the famous Earthshaker kept no blind man'...
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Is Evil Hole / Malpertugio a realistic name for a district in Naples?
Day 2 Story 5 of the Decameron is set partly in a district of Naples with (at least in the English translation) a striking name that sounds comical and exaggerated. Here follows the translation I'm ...
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How do I choose between a French translation and an English translation of a work written in a language that I cannot read?
Disclaimer: I have asked this question on both French and English Stack Exchange sites, and they both recommended that I ask it here instead. I hope it is on-topic, and apologize if it is not.
I can ...
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Why are "Ser" and "San" left untranslated to "Sir" and "Saint"?
Day 1 Story 1 of the Decameron is about the knavish Ser Ciappelletto, who after his death becomes reputed as the holy San Ciappelletto. In the Rigg translation which I'm reading, these names are left ...
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Why do Athena and Talthybios speak "plainly" in the Iliad?
In Book IV of the Iliad, there are several instances where the translation refers to someone speaking "plainly":
Athena now took the form of a Trojan, the doughty warrior Laodocos Antenor's ...
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What is meant by "traffic" in this list of men's activities?
In the introduction (proem) to the Decameron, the author spends some paragraphs writing about lovesick women and how he hopes his stories may give them some solace as their situation means they're ...
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Why does Aphrodite speak like this while disguised as the old woman?
In Book III of The Iliad, there's an incident where the goddess Aphrodite disguises herself to speak to Helen. The translator wrote her speech like this:
Now she took the shape of an old woman who ...
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Why has this Premchand story been translated as both "Catastrophe" and "A Positive Change"?
There is a Premchand short story whose original Hindi title is "Vidhwans"; it's been translated into English as "Catastrophe", as seen here, but the same story has also been ...
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