Re: OT: Code-switching in music

"Imagine" should be an easy song to translate if your lang has a word
for "saccharine".  Bleah.  (Hopefully Beatlemania is not a protected
religion under NCNC... :) )
If you're going to translate something from the Lennon oeuvre,
"Mythago Wood" is a better candidate in a similar vein, IMO. Better
still, perhaps "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", or the
recently-mentioned-on-this-list "Helter Skelter".


On 10/9/07, Lars Finsen <lars.finsen@...> wrote:
> Den 9. okt. 2007 kl. 21.49 skrev David J. Peterson:
>
> > Huh.  You know, if you're working with an auxlang, or an
> > a posteriori language, it might work pretty well, but with an a
> > priori language, two words come to mind immediately: "imagine"
> > and "religion".  I can think of several creative ways to do "imagine",
> > but the word "religion" entails so much in English.  How might
> > one translate it in a language with an ill-defined culture, or a
> > radically different culture?  Translating it wholesale would seem
> > kludgey to me.  Anyone have an equivalent word in any of
> > their languages?
>
> Religion is a package word and rather a recent concept. A good
> candidate for a loan from the usual Latin and I think the Urianians
> would borrow the Latin word. The only trouble is that the language
> doesn't allow three open syllables in a row (and two only in two-
> syllable words or if the first one is a recognisable prefix), so I
> guess it would end up as a trisyllabic _religjon_ with a stress on
> the second syllable (which is allowed too only because of the
> recognisable prefix).
>
> I'd like to have a go at that song too, but give me a moment. Have to
> go to bed now, and busy day tomorrow.
>
> LEF
>

--
Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>

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