Re: Translation (almost) done

Hi taliesin!

On Mon, 29 May 2006 taliesin the storyteller wrote:
>
> I have for years been working on translating "Flight", first suggested
> in 1999:
> http://listserv.brown.edu/archives/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9901C&L=CONLANG&I=-3&P=4786
>
> My version is at
> http://taliesin.nvg.org/taruven/trans/flight.html
>
> Now, the main remaining problem is the line "it was almost too late to
> escape". How does non-Indoeuropean languages translate this line?
Malay (rather literal):
it-was | almost |too |late | to | escape
ada-lah | hampir | ter-lalu | lambat | untuk | meng-elak-kan benchana
be-EMPH | close | PERF-pass | late | for | PPART-avoid-TRANS natural.disaster

OR (more idiomatic):
hampir-lah | tak | sempat | lagi | meng-elak-kan | benchana
close-EMPH | not | have.opportunity | again | PPART-avoid-TRANS | natural.disaster


> A similar problem is the line "but not without wondering fairly
> seriously". Plenty of adverbs in English and all the IE-langs I know, so
> how else can this be done?
but | not | without | wondering | fairly seriously
tapi | tak | tanpa | memikirkan | dengan se.sunguh.sunguh.nya juga

which is, more literally:
but | not | without | wondering | with one.true.true.(of.it) quite

However, the English idiom "not without" involves
a double negative.  I would think it would be both
more idiomatic, and clearer, in most languages, to
say instead more simply: "and wondering fairly
seriously".   (In Malay:
dengan | memikirkan | dengan se.sunguh.sunguh.nya juga)


> Oh, and is it common that a translation becomes that much shorter than
> English?
But of course! ;-)  Depends mostly on what kinds
of concepts you choose to maximise efficiency for.

> I feel that there must be lots missing but then I reread and it
> seems to be a pretty good translation, although stilted as I haven't
> optimized word order anywhere.
Did you lose any of the essential meaning?  The test,
I think, is, if you translate it back, do you come up
with the same concepts in the same relation.


> t., still no net at home
:-(

> ------------------------------
FLIGHT
That evening, I was considering whether I would eat my supper when the
man arrived at our house, hungry and exhausted.  He was tall, with hair
dyed blacker than a crow, after the custom of the North.  While he was
washing I had to dry his clothes for him in front of the fire.  He ate
voraciously and drank a cup of wine which made him sleep.  The next
morning he warned us to leave that place immediately, as the floods
would soon overwhelm it, and it was almost too late to escape.  All five
of us mounted the horses we had bought at the last festival and followed
him, but not without wondering fairly seriously whether he was in fact
insane.  How lucky we were!  Not two days later, the waters destroyed
our house and all the fields beyond it, and most of our neighbours, who
had mocked us fleeing, were pitiably drowned.
> ------------------------------
This is manifestly beyond any of my current conlangs
to translate.  I'd have to generate a bit more vocab,
and (harder) deal with concepts and relationships
that haven't mattered yet.

Wonder how it would go in Kalusa ...?

Regards,
Yahya

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