Bevis, the Story of a Boy, by Richard Jefferies. It’s a boys’ book really, but I can remember wanting to build a boat the way Bevis did, while doubting his ability to float it. It was written in 1882. It’s not on Project Gutenberg, but it can be seen on Google Books, and free ebook versions can be found online.
This is a bit ambiguous, but assuming it’s meant seriously, one book translation I have mentioned before that I still find funny is Der tiefere Sinn des Labenz, a translation by Sven Böttcher of The Deeper Meaning of Liff by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd. It takes obscure place names and uses them to denote things for which no one word exists. The German is a recreation, rather than a translation, and it contains the whole English original.
Liff (n.) A common object or experience for which no word yet exists.
Limassol (n.) The correct name for one of those little paper umbrellas which come in cocktails with too much pineapple juice in them.
Lindisfarne (adj.) Descriptive of the pleasant smell of an empty biscuit tin.
Labenz, das Ein allgemein bekannter Gegenstand oder eine vertraute Erfahrung, für den oder die bisher noch keine Bezeichnung existiert.
Lamboing, das Geräusch, mit dem eine Glühbirne den Geist aufgibt.
Here’s a related website.
Some recent novels have been translated into German by two (or more) translators. Not an established team of two translators who are both responsible for the whole, but two translators by the publisher’s decision, to get the translation on the market faster – presumably while the hype for the usually English-language original is still on.
Thus, Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom was translated from the ‘American’ by Bettina Abarbanell and Eike Schönfeldt, and Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals had three translators (it apparently has more than one stylistic section, though).
Actually, Katy Derbyshire dealt with this in her blog love german books last August. She says that Dan Brown’s latest novel was translated by six translators in ten days.
But today I heard something funny on the Swiss literature programme Literaturclub, which was a repeat of the pre-Christmas one. I only heard the beginning and end because I was cleaning the stairs in between (kleine Hausordnung) and I didn’t particularly want to hear Gert Scobel. Iris Radisch commented on the two translators of Zone, by Mathias Énard. This was translated from the French by Holger Fock and Sabine Müller. 517 pages but only one sentence, yet two translators! And apparently there is a story within the story, read by the main character in the train, the last paragraph of which is quoted again later, and the two translators translated this paragraph differently.
I find this amazing. Not because the editor should have coordinated the translations better – how much can you coordinate? But because I think if I’d been translating half the book, the second half at least, I would have noticed the problem and pointed it out to the editor.
I don’t think I’ll be reading Ènard, though, partly because the book is apparently patterned on the Iliad, and I’m having a surfeit of Ulysses.
LATER NOTE: apparently the two translators of the Énard novel are a husband-and-wife team and do always work together – see comment.
Introduction to English law for translators and/or non-lawyers
Starting again: I started this series on 22 October 2008 and wrote 5 posts, which you can find via the IEL tag. The last post was on 8 March 2009 and was a bit messy.
By request I am starting again, so here’s a summary of the story so far.
Summary so far:
1. Introduction
A revised version of my old Erlangen teaching notes
2. Great Britain and Ireland: geographical and political terms
Terms: Great Britain, the British Isles, Ireland, United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland
3. The United Kingdom and its three legal systems
Three jurisdictions: English law in England and Wales, Northern Ireland law in Northern Ireland (similar), Scottish law in Scotland (rather different).
4. English law
Started in 1066 (but no clean break) and later history, export of the system
5. History of English law
The courts, contract and tort (forms of action), real and personal actions, common law and equity
Terms touched on so far:
jurisdiction, Jurisdiktion, Gerichtsbezirk, Zuständigkeit
Rechtsprechung
executive, legislature, judiciary
a remedy
I am going to start again with a new post on equity and one on the common law. These are terms that cause translators a lot of grief, and I think the beginning of my treatment was very messy.
Let me repeat that this is a simplified, indeed over-simplified, summary that is intended to help people new to the subject orientate themselves in law and legal terminology. It has a tendency to generalize and could easily be criticized for that reason, but adding more detail would probably not serve its purpose.
One criticism I’ve received is recommending Wikipedia articles. I only recommend articles that I find helpful and reliable, and the fact that Wikipedia may contain errors somewhere or other does not alter the fact that some of its articles are ideal for this purpose. If you would prefer a book, one that I would recommend and that can be got second-hand is Dieter Henrich, Einführung in das englische Privatrecht – it’s in German, of course. It appeared in 1971 (Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft Darmstadt) and there was a later edition published elsewhere, and even a 2003 edition, but as it presents simple accounts of English law in history, it is not out of date.
The Bavarian transport minister, Peter Ramsauer, has long since banned a lot of English words from the German language in his ministry. Here’s an interview in German, which appeared in Stern in February 2010.
This story was widely reported once again yesterday, in the UK press as well as the German. The Independent reports today (‘Denglish’ now verboten):
His aim, which was backed by Chancellor Angela Merkel, was to defend his language against the spread of “Denglish” – the corruption of German with words such as “handy” for mobile phone and other expressions including “babysitten” and “downloaden”. As a result, words such as “laptop”, “ticket” and “meeting” are verboten in Mr Ramsauer’s ministry. Instead, staff must use their German equivalents: “Klapprechner”, “Fahrschein” and “Besprechung” as well as many other common English words that the minister has translated back into German.
He may have been diverting attention from the effects of snow on German rail and road transport:
Mr Ramsauer took time off from his role as minister in charge of sorting out some of the worst winter traffic chaos in decades yesterday to announce that his campaign to save German had been a roaring success. He said many Germans felt excluded by the growing use of “Denglish”.
Here is part of a list of Ramsauer corrections from the Rhein-Zeitung.
Administration – Verwaltung
Advisory Board – Beirat
Annex – Anhang
Backup – Sicherung, Absicherung
Beamer – Datenprojektor
Benchmark – Orientierungswert, Vergleichsmaßstab
Berechnungs-Tools – Berechnungsmethoden
Best Practice – bewährte Verfahren/Praktiken, Musterlösungen
Brainstorming – Ideensammlung
Briefing – Vorbesprechung
business cluster – Branchenkonzentration – Branchenschwerpunkt
Business Improvement District – Kooperationsregion von Geschäftsleuten
CarSharing – Gemeinschaftsauto
Checkliste – Prüfliste
cluster – regionales Netzwerk – Konzentrationspunkt
Computer – Rechner
Contracting – Vergabe
Controlling – Aufsicht, Steuerung
Controlling – Kontrolle, Steuerung
Corporate Design – einheitliches Auftreten, einheitliche Außendarstellung
Corporate Design – einheitliches Erscheinungsbild
Deadline – Abgabetermin, Frist
Debriefing – Nachbesprechung
Design-to-cost – Entwurf innerhalb einer festen Kostengrenze
Download – Herunterladen
Dummy – Attrappe (passt nicht immer)
e-government elektronische Behördendienste
E-Mail -(elektronische) Nachricht
Energie-Contracting – gewerbliche Wärmelieferung
Energiespar-Contracting –
Vertragl. garant. E.-Einsparung durch Externen
European Electronic Toll Service – Europäischer Elektronischer Mautdienst
One can see some of these are difficult. The equivalent to corporate design just doesn’t have the conciseness to make it popular. Then there are words like Handy (not on the list) that seem to be German inventions. One term new to me is Gigaliner (for a juggernaut). I can’t find many ghits on UK sites. Here it says the term was invented by a company for the 2004 International Motor Show:
Der Begriff “Gigaliner” ist eine Erfindung der Krone – Fahrzeugwerke zur IAA 2004 und bezeichnet Megatrailer mit angehängtem Volumen-Tandemachsanhänger.
Taking the underground to Nuremberg airport (I had to rebook to England three times), I was surprised to hear the voice saying ‘Next train to Airport’ – that is, the tube station Flughafen is translated into English. At the station itself, both versions appear on the wall.
Now here is the Hamburg Railway system with all the station names in English:
(via Christiane Bergfeld’s weblog Übersetzen und Literatur, doch nicht nur)
I remember when I studied German in London that we translated some of the London underground names into German. A fuller version is available at Vienna University:
London Underground map in German
Heathrow comes out as Heidenreihe, Hounslow as Hundslangsam and Ealing Common as Gemeinsames Aalen.
