Re: Multilingual translation exercise, part 1

Christophe Grandsire wrote:


>En réponse à agricola <agricola@...>:
>
>> Yscrews Jowan 'ap Jowan:
>>
>> >Trois cardinaux, un rabbin, un amiral franc-maçon, un trio...
>> Three cardinals, a rabbit, an emerald frank-maison, three unimportant
>>
>>  >Chacun s'arma d'un fort gourdin....
>>
>> All present were armed to the teeth from the fortress's garrison....
Personally, I'd go for:  "Everyone was armed with four gourds....."

and so on, snip the rest of a brilliantly funny piece.

>Well, I hope you're talking about yourself (and that this translation is
purely
>ironic) ;))) . If not, I have to warn you that this is probably the worst
>translation of a French text I ever saw :)))
Have you ever seen "Mots de Gousse Rhames" ?  Published back in the early
70s or so.. unfortunately I never bought it. It's "Mother Goose Rhymes"
using French words/grammar to approximate the English (cf. the title).  With
copious scholarly footnotes to explain the weirder locutions and the
mysterious author Gousse Rhames.  (Offline at the moment; I'll check Amazon
later.)

At about the same time, friends of mine sent out a Christmas card with this
text (badly remembered):

"Emaillerie qui ris {?se masse?} Ste. Api a nue hier" with footnotes trying
to explain laughing enamel-work, and a discussion of the obscure Ste. Api
and why she was naked.......(and the possibility that the text was
corrupted)....

I do have a delightful translation (correct) of Lear's "The Owl and the
Pussycat"-- Le Hibou et la Poussiquette, (by Francis Steegmuller, Illus. by
Barbara Cooney; Little Brown 1959, 1961) published as a childrens' book
(about the time "Winnie Ille Pu" was popular). Just a sample:

Hibou et Minou
allèrent à la mer
dans une barque peinte en jaune-canari;
Ils prirent du miel roux et beaucoup de sous
enroulés dans une lettre de crédit......

(I'll type out the complete text if there is great demand.  The
illustrations are the true delight, however, and that would involve scanning
13 pages or so, not to mention copyright problems....)

Reply