Re: TRANS: Fw: names of ants

From: "Irina Rempt"

> On Mon, 1 May 2000, Carlos Thompson wrote:
>
> > Here it is an interesting translation exercise I'm authorized to cross
post.
>
> > > Nalea tarostyenin furena na le zinat (Valdyan)
>
> > > Nobody remembers the names of ants (English)
>
> And I forgot to do it in Dutch as well when I did it in Valdyan:
>
> Niemand herinnert zich de namen van mieren.
>
> Or rather less stilted:
>
> Niemand weet (nog) hoe mieren heten.
Hi Irina --

My Dutch is weak at best (and heavily influenced by fairly weak German), but
I read the above, latter Dutch sentence to mean "No one knows (anymore) what
ants are called." (i.e. they don't know that ants are called "ants") while
the former, via German, is more recognizable (i.e. no one knows [or cares
{because they're too numerous and drones}] that this ant is called Bob, that
one is called Estelle, and that one is called Sebastian), and which many of
the natlang translations seems to follow. If I'm wrong, how would Dutch go
about translating: "No one knows what ants are called." (i.e. they don't
know that ants are called "ants"). Is there even such a distinction?

ObGéarthnuns:

Shahöchegs lü vauk ngalamsauch vük sheridsüng rhagaçön.
someone-nom/neg transcendent the-pl/neg name-acc/pl/neg the-pl/neg
ant-gen/pl/neg remember
No one remembers the names of ants.

Kou