# The Family Tree of the Valar



## Elbereth (Oct 15, 2003)

It seemed that Tolkien had a sense of soap opera- like drama when he began devising the family tree of some of the Valar. 

**Manwe and Melkor are brothers and yet mortal enemies. 

***Yavanna and Aule marry after in the world, but Yavanna has a son, Orome who is not son of Aule (see _ Simarillion II Annals of Valinor_ in the Lost Road)...very interesting. 

1. What other discoveries in the family tree of the Valar caught your attention? (Be free to be much more detailed than I) 

2. What differences have you noticed in the Valar family tree from one version of the story to another?....as we all know changes dramatically from one version of the text to another.

3. What version of the text should we really pay attention to when considering the history of the Vala? Or should each version be a part of our full understanding of Tolkien's original thought for this section of his mythology?

Discuss!


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## Kahmûl (Oct 15, 2003)

If Oromë is the son of Yavanna, and Vána is Yavanna's sister wouldn't Oromë have married his auntie.


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## Inderjit S (Oct 15, 2003)

Oromë being the son of Yavanna was dropped, as were all ideas on Valarin pro-creation (Annals of Aman; HoME 10).

Nienna was also, at one point the sister of Melkor and Manwë. She was said to support Melkor's plea to be forgiven by the Valar and it is said her kinship influenced this.


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## jallan (Oct 17, 2003)

Kahmul posted:


> If Oromë is the son of Yavanna, and Vána is Yavanna's sister wouldn't Oromë have married his auntie.


Well, in _The Book of Lost Tales I_ (HoME 1), Oromë is son of Aulë and Yavanna while Vána’s parentage is not given. No problem.

Then in _The Shaping of Middle-earth_ (HoME 4), in the 1937 “Quenta” very near the beginning we are told nothing of Oromë’s origin but that Vana his wife is the younger sister of Varda and Palúrien (=Yavanna). Presumably Tolkien had dropped the idea that Oromë and Nessa were children of Aulë and Yavanna.

Then in “The Earliest Annals of Valinor” (in the same volume) Oromë’s parentage is unmentioned but an added note claims Nessa is daughter of Yavanna. Vana’s parentage is again unmentioned. Tolkien’s Old English version of this passage first introduces the idea that Oromë and Tulkas were younger than the other Ainur and that Oromë was the son of Yavanna but not by Aulë. Vana“s parentage is here still left obscure.

This account is repeated in _The Lost Road_ (HoME 5) at the beginning of “The Later Annals of Valinor”.

But in “Quenta Silmarillion” in the same volume Tolkien returns to the “Quenta” tale in which Oromë are brother and sister with no parentage given and Vana his wife is the younger sister of Varda and Palúrien (=Yavanna). This is the story he subsequently sticks to.

In _Morgoth’s Ring_ (HoME 10), near the beginning of “The Annals of Aman” the idea that both Oromë and Tulkas were younger than the others is retained but the account is otherwise that of the previous “Quenta Silmarillion”: no parentage is mentioned for Oromë and Nessa. Vana is the younger sister of Varda and Yavanna.

The idea that Oromë is not the son of Aulë may have been a borrowing from Norse myth.

There the hunter god Ullr is called son of Sif and stepson of Thor, Sif being the wife of Thor. But are never told who Ullr’s father actually was. For example:


> XIV. How should Ullr be periphrased? By calling him Son of Sif, Stepson of Thor, God of the Snowshoe, God of the Bow, Hunting-God, God of the Shield.


See Skáldskaparmal and search on Ullr for references.

Ullr’s mythology is very obscure. He plays a part in the very odd version of the death of Baldr in Saxo Grammaticus’ The Danish History, Book Three. Search for _Oller_.


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## Walter (Oct 18, 2003)

> _Originally posted by jallan _
> See Skáldskaparmal and search on Ullr for references.


 It should be noted that in some translations (e.g in the currently available book of the Sturluson Edda) the name is - wrongly, I think - translated _Ull_...


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## jallan (Oct 19, 2003)

_Ull_ is not wrong for _Ullr_

Old Norse nouns and proper names have case endings. Sometimes a translator into English will render some or all proper names in the nominative case with the proper case endings and sometimes a translator will remove the case ending. 

There is no consistent rule and translators often vary what they do depending on how the name looks in English. They may simplify in other ways as well by removing diacritics or changing letters that are odd in English.

For example, one sometimes finds the form _Frey_ and sometimes _Freyr_ in English. His father _Njǫrðr_ is in English variously rendered as _Njörðr_, _Njörð_, _Njörd_ and _Njord_. But almost always we find _Thor_ or _Thór_ rather than _Thórr_ or _Þórr_.

The same thing happens with Latin. _Neptunus_ is almost always shortened to _Neptune_ and _Mercurius_ is shortened to _Mercury_.

But names like _Petronius_ and _Aurelius_ and _Augustus_ are normally left alone.

On the other hand we are used to seeing _Marcus Antonius_ as _Mark Antony_ or even _Mark Anthony_.


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## Walter (Oct 20, 2003)

I think I put that wrong...

The intention of my post was to point out, that in the Skaldskaparmal of the currently _printed_ version of the Prose Edda the name to look for is Ull not Ullr (even though this should be rather obvious and hence I could've saved my breath).

The rest was more or less a personal note, I prefer Ullr over Ull as I prefer Marcus Antonius over the English rendering Mark Antony or the German Mark Anton. Like I wouldn't use Romul and Rem instead of Romulus and Remus.

IMO names are better left alone in such translations or else we might end up seeing Bilbo Baggins named _Bilbo Beutelin_ in a German translation


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## jallan (Oct 22, 2003)

Well, in his “Guide to the Names in _The Lord of the Rings_” intended for translators, Tolkien listed the names which he contained English elements and should therefore be translated, including _Baggins_. On _Baggins_ he writes:


> Intended to recall ‘bag’ ‖ compare Bilbo’s conversation with Smaug in _The Hobbit_ ‖ and meant to be associated (by hobbits) with Bag End (that is, the end of a ‘bag’ or ‘pudding bag’ = cul-de-sac ), the local name for Bilbo’s house. (It was the local name for my aunt’s farm in Worcestershire, which was at the end of a lane leading to it and no further). Compare also _Sackville-Baggins_. The translation should contain an element meaning ‘sack, bag’.


_Beutlin_ seems to me to be reasonable enough.

There is a discussion of some of the German translations of place names in the Shire at Problems in Translating the Shire Map based on the German edition.

Place names which have clear meanings sometimes cry out for translation. It would be perverse not to render Norse _Myrkviðr_ as ‘Mirkwood’ in English. On the other hand, Norse _Þórr_ is simply the form taken in Old Norse by Proto-Germanic *_þunaraz_ which becomes _thunder_ in Modern English, _donner_ in German (and _tonnerre_ in French). Perhaps instead of rendering _Þórr_ as _Thor_ we should use the proper English cognate _Thunder_.

Of course the problem in doing a great amount of translating of names across languages is that for most names there is no one single correct translation and a multitude of different translations of the same name by different authors becomes confusing.


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## Walter (Nov 3, 2003)

This is an edited version of my previous post of Oct 23 or 24 (which I accidently deleted during the editing process):

----

Well, yes, but in Bilbo's conversation Bilbo says something like "...no bag went over me...", but that's exactly one of the associations that comes to my mind with "Beutlin" or - if we correctly translate 'bag' with _Beutel_ - "Beutelin": _someone in a bag_ or _something in a purse_

Since _Beut(e)lin_ in German has no "straight" meaning and Tolkien at the beginning of _The Hobbit_ is not all that descriptive about Hobbits, the reader is left puzzling about the name "Hobbit" (un-translated but with an "English touch") and the according name _Beutlin_ describing something/someone evidently living in a hole. Some associations that many German native speakers - like myself - seem to have with _Beut(e)lin_ are: some sort of a kangaroo, opossum or another marsupial (_Beuteltier_).

Also the suffix _-in_ in German often denominates a female form, hence _Beut(e)lin_ would represent the name of a female form of "bag", which is of course nonsensical. Another association could be _Beutlerin_, which in this case would represent a female who shakes something (or is shaking), like e.g. a _Schmeichlerin_ denominates a female flatterer.

There are a few more translations which are IMO rather awkward in the German edition, like Sting..._Stich_ (Carroux) and Bywater..._Wassernach_ (Scherf) (which have been discussed in VT 28 & 30) or _Kankra_ for Shelob...

But we're drifting off-topic here...

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Edit: Other possible interpretations of _Beut(e)lin_ added.


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## Lhunithiliel (Nov 3, 2003)

MHO, being a translator myself, is that in all cases a translator should not even try to translate a *name*, no matter how obvious the ethymology of the word is. Nor should he/she try to make a parallel concerning the construction of the word itself (prefix;suffix, root of the word etc.), trying to apply such or similar construction in the translation. All his/her attempts to translate a name, trying as much as possible to preserve those two mentioned above, may eventually result in a name, which could sound in the destination language ...hmmm.... quite ridiculous! 

Just my two cents  in respect to this "translation" matter.
Besides, I have an "excellent" example - the translation of LOTR into my language - a huge work which however starts irritating the reader just after a couple of pages covered, with all those names of characters and places being translated in the way I am criticising in my present post. This is especially strongly felt by people who speak English language.


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## jallan (Nov 3, 2003)

Lhunithiel posted:


> MHO, being a translator myself, is that in all cases a translator should not even try to translate a name, no matter how obvious the ethymology of the word is.


Tolkien strongly disagreed on his “A Guide to the Names in _The Lord of the Rings_” which provided detailed instructions to help translators understand the meanings of the names he thought should be translated.


> Nor should he/she try to make a parallel concerning the construction of the word itself (prefix;suffix, root of the word etc.), trying to apply such or similar construction in the translation. All his/her attempts to translate a name, trying as much as possible to preserve those two mentioned above, may eventually result in a name, which could sound in the destination language ...hmmm.... quite ridiculous!


The fallacy in your argument is in the word _may_, e.g. your argument is that because in some cases the attempt _may_ fail therefore it should never be made.

In fact there is slippery slope sliding down from _Green-Hill Country_, through _the Shire_ and to _Lune_. I doubt any translator would not and should not translate _Green-Hill Country_.

Therefore the question is not whether or not it is sometimes correct translate proper names but exactly when and where you should stop. Presumably you stop when and where the translations don’t work rather than not translating at all.

Should one leave _Strider_ alone, for example, or _Greenleaf_ in Legolas Greenleaf? Part of the point in _The Lord of the Rings_ of having a name like _Rivendell_ is that it is supposed to feel like a name that belongs in the language in which the story is told, though archaic in form, while its Elvish counterpart _Imladris_ should feel foreign.

What of _Mirkwood_, itself a borrowing of the common and exceptionally well-fitting standard translation of Old Norse _Myrkvið_? Should translators of the Edda not have so rendered that name? Tolkien similarly borrowed his _Midgewater_ in Midgewater Marshes from the Icelandic place name _Myvatin_ which is etymologically identical and means the same.

I prefer Eddic translations that do translate when meanings are obviousl. In English the god Ullr should live in a place called Yew-dales, not _Ýdalir_. In English we want Elves in Elfhome (or even Elvenhome), not Alfar in Alfheim.

To avoid bad translation by not translating at all prevents good translation.

The page Problems in Translating the Shire Map discusses translations of Shire geographical names in German and makes some suggestions of what might have been better.


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## Lhunithiliel (Nov 3, 2003)

Oh, jallan, I am not arguing! 
Just expressed an opinion and I guess I was referring mostly to names of people , though the names of some places IM*HO*  should too be left as they are.

Just an opinion! That's all. 

And I agree on the things you pointed out!


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## jallan (Nov 4, 2003)

No problem in arguing.

When translating exactly any work one tries to reproducing in full all aspects of the original, and always fails (at least for any great literary work).

The difficulty with Tolkien’s work is that some of its orginal effect does depend more on subtleties of meaning and particular connotations of words and names. A perfect translation should be able to reproduce these subtleties.

But that will often be as impossible as reproducing the subtle word plays and puns in the comedies of Aristophanes. Yet in a literary translation, one should try, knowing that one will fail to achieve the original but that something at least will come through.

If _Beutlin_ is bad, then something else should be used. Maybe _Beutelung_? I don’t know. My German is not good. 

I can imagine an epic poem based on the Red Book that was called the _Beutelungenlied_. 

One problem is that in a literary translation one _needs_ a surname for Bilbo and a name for his residence that will make sense of Bilbo’s riddling about _bag_ in his speech to Smaug.

Or one needs to substitute some other riddling that works instead in German.

Or one can admit failure and just add a footnote pointing out what Bilbo means in the original.

Or one can eliminate that section of Bilbo’s riddling speech altogether.


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## Lhunithiliel (Nov 5, 2003)

And don't you think a note would be appropriate?
I mean...give the name as it is and in a note (at the bottom of the page f.ex.) give a short explanation ~ translation of this name).
I think that reading the name of a character or of a place as it originally is contributes to a better "feeling" the atmosphere of the story, especially when Tolkien is concerned. 

Just another opinion, you know!


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## jallan (Nov 6, 2003)

I prefer a genuine translation to notes if a reasonable translation can be done.

Notes are an admission of failure. 

They are necessary in scholarly translations rather than literary translations.

But even in scholarly translation I would rather see an attempt at a literary translation in the text itself with a note at the back explaining what the translator has done if in rendering a play on words the translator has not been able to be altogether accurate.

A good literary translation should read like an original, even at the expense of strict accuracy.

A strict scholarly translation intended as an exact crib of the original has a somewhat different purpose.

Both have their place.

But if presenting a version of a comedy by Aristophanes on stage, which type of translation would you use?

In the first chapter of _The Lord of the Rings_, one would like a translation that lets the reader enjoy the Hobbit surnames rather than crabbed footnotes that explain why an English reader might find them enjoyable. The meaning of each surnname is not important, what is important is that surnames are provided that are somewhat comic and rustic and old-fashioned in feeling in the target language, either names that exist in the culture or that are similar to names that exist but somewhat modified to fit Hobbit perculiarities.


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## Lhunithiliel (Nov 7, 2003)

I see your point, jallan, and in many cases I agree that it could be applied.

But...just for fun  ...let's give your method a try and check its applicability. 

My own real given name has a meaning - it means "little drops of dew".

Now... try to make up a name in English that would keep the meaning of the original name, somehow point out that this is a name of a woman (as is the structure of my name as of all Slavic names), and finally, it should be a collective noun like the one used in my language and .... all this must sound very _English_. 

Then... my middle and family names. The names-forming tradition in the Slavic languages shows that the middle and the family names actually inform whose child is the person. And unlike the Spanish-speaking nations, these names are being given to the person following only the line of the father.
So....I, being the daughter of my father and the grand-daughter of his father - my grand-father, got those two names. They are formed from the respective names of those two respectable gentlemen ( ) to which names, according to the normally applied structures in the Slavic languages, a suffix is added. It is *this suffix* in fact that tells that I am the daughter of .... and grand-daugther of... But it is also in a _F_ gender ( men also have such a suffix in their middle and family names but of a _M_ gender). 

Now...let's imagine I am the principal character of a story. How should a translator render my complete name into English so that the English reader could receive all the above information?


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## jallan (Nov 8, 2003)

Lhunithiel posted:


> My own real given name has a meaning - it means "little drops of dew".
> 
> Now... try to make up a name in English that would keep the meaning of the original name, somehow point out that this is a name of a woman (as is the structure of my name as of all Slavic names), and finally, it should be a collective noun like the one used in my language and .... all this must sound very English.


_All_ of this is not possible in English of course.

But the collective noun in English for “little drops of dew” is simply _dew_ which occurs as a surname in English. It dosn’t seem particularly good as a female given name, though it would do in a Hobbitish type of nomenclature, that is one where many of the names aren’t particularly normal. I don’t know of anyone named named _Bilbo_ or _Frodo_ or _Lobelia_ or _Belladonna_.

So I don’t have a problem with _Dew_ as a female given name.

But for a better feel I would go with _Dewdrop_ which actually occurs as a given name in English, though rarely. Search for _Dewdrop_ at Christopher Dean CHRISAWN. Or I would use _Morningdew_ though I only find it on the web as name of a fantasy character in an illustration at Morningdew 2.

Either would be a close enough as a English substitute, neither much used in English but neither seeming uncouth or awkward.

As to the patronymic, I have sometimes seen _-ovna_ simply and logically rendered by _-daughter_, e.g. _Ivanovna_ as _John-daughter_ or _John’s-daughter_.

Similarly _-son_ for _-ovich_.

The site Guide To Doukhobor Names indicates that Russian Doukhobor immigrants to Canada have generally omitted any suffix and partially or completely Anglicised names. E.g. _Nikolai Semeonovich Barabanoff_ to _Nicholas Samuel Barnes_.

One would not normally want to do this in translations of history books. Cross-referencing would become _very_ difficult as translators would not agree on their translations. :-(

Nor would one do it with most names in novels set in historical places and times.

But with a fantasy tale set in time and place that never was, such translation may be exactly what is required, at least for those names that are meant to have meaning within the tale or meant to have an aesthetic effect within the tale.

I am currently reading _The Book of Dede Korkut_ translated by Geoffrey Lewis. He writes:


> When dealing with proper names, I have avoided what one may call the ‘Lady Precious Stream’ technique. Most Turkish names, ancient and modern, are susceptible of translation, but one would not turn such modern names as AbdÃ¼rrahman Aydemir and Taner Oliguner into ‘Slave-of-the-Compassionate Moon-iron’ and ‘Dawn-hero Mature-man’, since what these English renderings connote is not what the originals convey to a Turkish ear. So I have left Ters Uzamish in Chapter 10 as Ters Uzamish and have not turned him into Stretched-out Contrariwise, and the heroine of Chapter 3 is Chichek and not Flower, while the villain of the same story appears as Yaltajuk son of Yalanjii and not as Little Toady son of Liar. I have, however, translated _Kara_ as ‘Black’ when it is part of a title rather than of a name, so ‘the Black King’ for Kara TekÃ¼r.


I wonder.

The only role Ters Uzamish has is to speak some rude words that prompt the hero to his heroic action. It appears the name here was intended to be meaningful and that _Uzamish_ which Lewis claims means ‘Contrariwise’ might profitably have been Englished as ‘the Contrary’ or ‘the Discourteous’ or ‘the Carper’ or ‘the Quarrelsome’.

Similarly _Flower_ does well as a woman’s name. Not translating hides the probable irony of that name for a woman who disguises herself as a serving girl and challenges the hero to a wrestling contest which she almost wins. Later she is described as:


> ... a girl who will rise before I get to my feet, who will be on horseback before I mount my well-trained horse, who before I reach the enemy will bring me some heads;


A name that can be translated as ‘Little Toady son of Liar’ has obviously been created for its meaning. Why not something like Brownnose son of False-tongue or Bootlicker son of No-truth?

A common difficultywith translations of foreign works in very unfamiliar languages is the plethora of proper names in which the elements that make them up are opaque.

They are hard to remember because nothing in them is recognizable. 

One cannot usually realistically translate everything and would not want to.

But translating elements that are intended to have meaning or which have a one-to-one translation to forms in the target language can make a translation more readable and comprehensible.


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## Lhunithiliel (Nov 8, 2003)

If I have understood your post well (it's so late at night here! ) then we do agree on some points. 

The process goes v.v. as well. To be more specific, I still find that the translation of the name "Baggins" into my mother tongue (which is Bulgarian and not Russian) keeping the meaning of the word in that name (bag) and to it - added a construction fit for a Slavic language to show that this is a family name, still sounds extremely stupid.

And I wonder...why that translator had not dared translate the name of Galadriel! Good for him that he had not even tried to do it! For an Elvish Queen, this name seems to a reader here so... "Elvish"! Any attempt to translate it would've killed the "magic"!

On the other hand, the names "Strider" or Longshanks" I find these are no "proper" names but more like nicknames and such should be translated. With this I do agree! 

A note aside: Having that name of mine, I have often, just for fun, searched for a suitable translation that would sound more..."English" and still keep all the elements in it. No way! "Dew" or even "Dewdrop" nor "Morningdew" are exact, although close. But we have already agreed on this matter...to some extent


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## Gil-Galad (Nov 8, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Lhunithiliel _
> *MHO, being a translator myself, is that in all cases a translator should not even try to translate a name, no matter how obvious the ethymology of the word is. Nor should he/she try to make a parallel concerning the construction of the word itself (prefix;suffix, root of the word etc.), trying to apply such or similar construction in the translation. All his/her attempts to translate a name, trying as much as possible to preserve those two mentioned above, may eventually result in a name, which could sound in the destination language ...hmmm.... quite ridiculous!
> 
> Just my two cents  in respect to this "translation" matter.
> Besides, I have an "excellent" example - the translation of LOTR into my language - a huge work which however starts irritating the reader just after a couple of pages covered, with all those names of characters and places being translated in the way I am criticising in my present post. This is especially strongly felt by people who speak English language. *



Lhun,I completely agree with you.The names of places and characters should not be changed,no matter of any ethymology and so on.I read too LOTR in the Bulgarian version and in the English one and,although the translator(Liubomir Nikolov I think )did his best,it was really awful and even stupid in a way,especially when you know the original names.


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## jallan (Nov 8, 2003)

Lhunithiel posted:


> And I wonder...why that translator had not dared translate the name of Galadriel! Good for him that he had not even tried to do it!


Because Tolkien told him not to. 

Tolkien’s ‚A Guide to the Names in _The Lord of the Rings_‛ lists the names that Tolkien thinks a translator should attempt to translate and firmly states:


> All names not in the following list should be left entirely unchanged in any language used in translation, except that inflexional _-s_, _-es_ should be rendered according to the grammar of the language.


Of course no Elvish names are included, nor even the Old English names, only names that are made up of modern English elements and sometimes placenames:


> ... containing elements that are in the current language obsolete or dialectal, or are worn-down and obscured in form.


Unfortunately this guide does not seem to have been sent to every translator. The Icelandic translation in particular is notoriously bad in that the translator changed many of the Elvish names whenever he thought they looked somewhat Germanic or Icelandic (and he did so inconsistantly).

On example of Tolkien’s guiding:


> _Butterbur._ So far as I know, not found as a name in England, though Butter is so used, as well as combinations (in origin place-names) such as _Butterfield_. These have in the tale been modified, to fit the generally botanical names of Bree, to the plant-name ‘butterbur’ (_Petasites vulgaris_) If the popular name for this contains an equivalent of ‘butter’, so much the better. Otherwise use another plant-name containing ‘butter’ (as German _Butterblume_, _Butterbaum_, Dutch _boterbloeme_) or referring to a fat thick plant. The butterbur is a fleshy plant with a heavy flower-head on a thick stalk, and very large leaves.
> 
> Butterbur’s first name _Barliman_ is simply an altered spelling of ‘barley’ and ‘man’ (suitable to an innkeeper and ale-brewer), and should be translated.


This and other comments on many other names seems reasonable enough as giving Tolkien’s intent.

What is important is that the name in the target language sounds not horribly uncouth and keeps some of the meaning, not that it be an exact translation of the plant-name in English either by etymology or by a local translation of the name of the plant or by rendering the botanical Latin form Tolkien provides as a way to allow a translator to look up a possible common name in the target language.

Tolkien knows that exact translations that fit etymology and meaning and are good names in the style of the target language will often not be possible. But he tries to provide information that will help a translator do his best.

Is there indeed _no_ plant name (standard or dialectical) in Bulgarian that contains a Bulgarian word for _butter_ (or even possibly some other fatty substance) that would seem not improper as a surname?

Similarly cannot _Barley-man_ be reasonably translated into Bulgarian as though it were a nickname?


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## Lhunithiliel (Nov 9, 2003)

Oh! Our dear Mr. Barliman Butterbur! 

Now ... his name is one more example of what we are talking here about. 

Barliman is being "translated" (I'll give you a back translation but not as one particular name) as:- _the one who spills (or it can be also "serves") ale_  

Butterbur - Now, of course we have butter! We are a southern country! We have a lot of everything!  
As for the name - the _"butter"_ part in it was extremely freely interpreted and translating it back exactly it would be - _spreading butter_  
And then for the _"bur"_ - part he used the word/name of a plant, whose roots are used as some kind of food (mostly of course to animals) and it is of quite thick, and "fleshy" composition.
The problem here arises that in our own folk-lore the name of this plant has always had somewhat negative notion. We still call by this name a person who prefer living "on the back" of somebody else. I guess (though I am not an expert in botanics) that is because this plant must be some sort of a weed, a kind of a parasite-plant.

So, all in all, the whole name being translated in that manner, sounds ..... ridiculous and fails to bring a smile nor any particular simpathy for the character on behalf of the reader, as the intention of Tolkien must have been when giving him that particular name.

And what about the name of _Robin Hood_? All over the world this character is known with this particular name!!!! No translations of the "hood" - part (as far as I am aware of, of course!). Were the translators of past worse than the today's ones? I doubt it. Yet, they preferred leaving it unchanged. Why? I don't know. But if I were to translate these tales, I would've not gone for translating this part of the name. I would've left it as it is. It sounds so English!  to every Bulgarian reader. Whatever word I could have used for its translation, it would've lost the English "air" about the character and the events.

The same goes with the name of another fictional character - the famous "Zorro" - the name meaning "male fox". I guess a translator could add "the fox" still keeping the name "Zorro", although of course this will then be a repetition of the meaning. Yet, it would still give the reader some notion about the character, for we all know that Zorro was famous for his disguise and cunning skills  However, this way of handling this particular name would be appropriate for target-languages spoken by peoples where "fox" is known as a "symbol" of "cunning". Otherwise a translator might find her/himself forced to find another way of rendering the meaning of the name.... or just leave it as it is.

So...you see, one could give a lot of other examples, but then ... isn't it a fact that especially with names of that kind - names actually _meaning_ sth., a translator should be extremely careful and ..... either leave them as they are or try to be closest possible to the original name. There can be a lot of "close" _interpretations_ that would suit the target language-reader but then... such kind of rendering may lead to rather losing than gaining the desired effect.
That is why I said in one of my previous posts that the "note"-system is a good alternative. 

I am thinking now again about the names of those Elves (in Tolkien's books) where we find the root/particle "_gal_" - meaning "light" (I am NOT an expert in T. languages by no means!  ... but I think I am not wrong about this). In these cases and in most others, I wonder what's wrong with a note at the bottom of the page where the translator could give a suitable explanation on the name? The reader thus will receive a fair understanding on the meaning of the name of the particular character and will still know her/him with the original name - a name, that being _not_ translated, will keep its "mistery" as the name of someone coming from far-away lands or/and times.

*******
A question aside, please: In the quote you provided I read:


> ...the generally botanical names of Bree...


I could find no word "bree" in my dictionaries.  Any help?


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## jallan (Nov 9, 2003)

Lhunithiel posted:


> Barliman is being "translated" (I'll give you a back translation but not as one particular name) as:- the one who spills (or it can be also "serves") ale


That doesn’t sound good. 

But is that really the best that could be done? Can’t you personally do better than that?


> Butterbur - Now, of course we have butter! We are a southern country! We have a lot of everything!
> As for the name - the "butter" part in it was extremely freely interpreted and translating it back exactly it would be - spreading butter
> And then for the "bur" - part he used the word/name of a plant, whose roots are used as some kind of food (mostly of course to animals) and it is of quite thick, and "fleshy" composition.
> The problem here arises that in our own folk-lore the name of this plant has always had somewhat negative notion. We still call by this name a person who prefer living "on the back" of somebody else. I guess (though I am not an expert in botanics) that is because this plant must be some sort of a weed, a kind of a parasite-plant.


Then a name with improper connotations was chosen. Would there be no better one?

Of course, a normal speaker of Bulgarian would not not know all names of all plants in all varieties of Bulgarian any more than an English speaker is aware of all plant names that are in use in all varieties of modern English. I don’t believe I ever encountered _butterbur_ as a plant name myself (outside of Tolkien’s own explanation).

If there were is no such name in Bulgarian, an invented name meaning something like _butter-root_ might do, especially if it also sounded something like a possible surname, as does English _Butterfield_ or _Butterworth_.

I think one of the problems with translations is the timing. A translator is chosen and arrangements for payment are made and a deadline which would be a reasonable one for most books is set.

But the translator might be very knowledgeable in the source language and target language yet often not be able to quickly find proper translations for the names. A lot of research would be required into old place names, botanical names (standard and obolete and and dialectical) and so forth. This is not a kind of learning most have at their fingertips. Even with such learning picking proper names for the Shire geography might take a week of pondering and further research. The translator does what can be done in the time available but naturally the results are very mixed.

Complaints about some of these name-translations are common when translations of Tolkien are discussed. Often they could be fixed. But someone owns the translation. Translations as notoriously bad as the Swedish translation continue to be published because there is no competition. A particular publisher has exclusive rights to the work.

The Dutch translations is reputedly very good in its name translations. Of course Dutch and English are closely related languages.

But the Finnish translation also has a high reputation and Finnish is not even part of the Indo-European family of languages. Translations of the names into Finnish are, reputedly, often very free in meaning compared to the original English but apparently many feel exactly right in Finnish.


> No translations of the "hood" - part (as far as I am aware of, of course!).


Probably because it is not felt to be meaningful. That is, Robin’s surname just happened to be _Hood_. (Some modern retellers explain it by an invented tale about Robin disguising himself with a hood but that’s not part of the genuine tradition.)

On the other hand I would think that _Little_ in ‘Little John’ ought to be translated and possibly _scarlet_ in ‘Will Scarlet’.

There is a difference also when translating a tale that has a local setting and one that does not, in the sense that in Tolkien’s story the names that appear as English are not supposed to actually be English at all. 

How can there be modern English names in a tale supposedly dated to a time when even the geography of Europe was radically different? Tolkien pretends that he has made translations from the true languages and even substituted names for the true names because they have the proper feel in respect to modern English. Frodo and the Hobbits of the Shire are not supposed to actually be ‘English’ and to be speaking English.

A really good Bulgarian translation of _The Lord of the Rings_ should have a Bulgarian air about it, should feel Bulgarian to the core (outside of all the Elvishness). No English feel should remain.


> I am thinking now again about the names of those Elves (in Tolkien's books) where we find the root/particle "gal" - meaning "light" (I am NOT an expert in T. languages by no means! ... but I think I am not wrong about this). In these cases and in most others, I wonder what's wrong with a note at the bottom of the page where the translator could give a suitable explanation on the name?


In theory there would be nothing wrong, other than that this would interrupt the reading. Tolkien originally planned a full commentary index that would have translated most of these names. But it was never completed. That would probably have been a better solution.

But the meaning of many of these names is not clear to us. Some of the Tolkien’s linguistic material published after his death reveals him taking great pains years later to try and figure out what in the world these names are supposed to mean and sometimes concludes that the apparent meaning was not the real meaning or that the Men who gave the names were not as proficient in Elvish as they should have been. 

Tolkien will sometimes give a meaning that is not what we would otherwise have guessed. (It is convenient for a inventor of a language to be able to create new stems in the proto-language as required.) In this kind of situation it woud be presumptious to officially add translations for all the Elvish names to the book. For some of them we still don’t know the meaning at all.

For example, as to _gal-_, in “The Etymologies” Tolkien provides two stems, *GAL-* ‘shine; variant of KAL’ and *GALA-* ‘thrive (prosper, be in health – be glad’. Under the latter Tolkien has the Sindarin form _galw_ and remarks:


> cf. names _Galadhor_, _Galdor_ (later _Gallor_) – though these may contain GÁLAD.


So does _Galdor_ have a meaning related to ‘prosperity’ or to _galad-_ ‘tree’?

Also, as in the real world, what appears to be the literal meaning of a name is sometimes not its meaning at all. We know far less about Sindarin and Quenya then we do about English or Bulgarian.


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## Lhunithiliel (Nov 10, 2003)

> _Originally posted by jallan _
> But is that really the best that could be done? Can't you personally do better than that?


Why would I ever?
See.... The village is called *B*ree and I have noticed that most names of the characters around this location start with this *B* and it somehow gets all related. Bree, Barliman Butterbur, Bob, Bill etc. And a keen reader is sure to notice it! When translating those names this "relation" is lost.

Of course I admit that there are names, especially of Hobbits, that a reader would find amusing if they are being translated.


> The Men of Bree seemed all to have rather botanical (and to the Shire-folk rather odd) names, like Rushlight, Goatleaf, Heathertoes, Appledore, Thistlewool and Ferny (not to mention Butterbur). Some of the hobbits had similar names. The Mugworts, for instance, seemed numerous. But most of them had natural names, such as Banks, Brockhouse, Longholes, Sandheaver, and Tunnelly, many of which were used in the Shire.


_from the book itself!_
Ah, those names!  



> I think one of the problems with translations is the timing. A translator is chosen and arrangements for payment are made and a deadline which would be a reasonable one for most books is set.
> But the translator might be very knowledgeable in the source language and target language yet often not be able to quickly find proper translations for the names. A lot of research would be required into old place names, botanical names (standard and obolete and and dialectical) and so forth. This is not a kind of learning most have at their fingertips. Even with such learning picking proper names for the Shire geography might take a week of pondering and further research. The translator does what can be done in the time available but naturally the results are very mixed.


I fully agree with this! Unfortunately it is very often that the translation (whatever it is) is needed for.... _yesterday_  

I am criticising the translation - yes... but it does not mean that I do not respect the labour of the translator. It must have been a hard work! I only admit that the final result was not the desired, unfortunately!



> A really good Bulgarian translation of _The Lord of the Rings_ should have a Bulgarian air about it, should feel Bulgarian to the core (outside of all the Elvishness). No English feel should remain.In theory there would be nothing wrong, other than that this would interrupt the reading. Tolkien originally planned a full commentary index that would have translated most of these names. But it was never completed. That would probably have been a better solution.


Ha! Here we come to another "hot" topic! I was to bring it up anyway! 

I have a question: How does a native English language speaker feel when reading the story as told in _modern_ English language and yet there are some passages where one finds words/phrases/constructions of speech that are no more used in our days.
Of course, I can't be 100% positive about what is and what isn't used in modern English, as I am only a foreigner, but still there are such cases.
I am asking this question because the translator of the LOTR-book has used in many cases a language that we, the Bulgarians, know to have been used in old times. Words, structures of sentences.... little elements but ...
The point is that I do understand the translator's intention to try to bring that "air" of old times by using that old-fashion language. Of course, I can give examples, but they will mean nothing to you as you don't speak our language. 
However, I found it a bit irritating - this mixture of modern and old Bulgarian. And yet I see the same phenomenon in the original language of the original story (written in English) and I wonder... how does an English-speaker feel about it.


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## jallan (Nov 11, 2003)

Lhunithiel posted:


> The point is that I do understand the translator's intention to try to bring that "air" of old times by using that old-fashion language. Of course, I can give examples, but they will mean nothing to you as you don't speak our language.
> However, I found it a bit irritating - this mixture of modern and old Bulgarian. And yet I see the same phenomenon in the original language of the original story (written in English) and I wonder... how does an English-speaker feel about it.


This is very difficult to answer. 

The short answer is that feelings vary. Go not to English speakers for council for they will say both yeah and nay.

But generally the mixture of styles in passages such as the one where Merry and Pippin meet Théoden are highly regarded. I recall someone calling it a “collision of styles”, approvingly because Tolkien makes it work magnificently here, playing the two different styles off each other to great effect.

But archaism in English is itself a controversial feature outside of any consideration of Tolkien. Some hate it whenever they see it. Some love it when well done and usually have no great problems with it when not so well done if they find other features of the literary work are satisfactory.

Those who find all archaism annoyingly artificial naturally find it annoyingly artificial in Tolkien. There was a strong reaction against archaism in English during the twentieth century, in my opinion an over-reaction.

But then as a child I read Howard Pyle’s retellings of the Arthurian legends which imitate the 15th century English of Sir Thomas Malory’s _Le Morte Darthur_. Indeed, one reason Arthurian legend was attractive to me was the odd, old language in which Malory wrote and which style was often imitated (at least in part) in retellings. I also read other material purposely written in styles less archaic, including novels set in medieval times

So I personally have no problems in reading English that has been somewhat medievalized. Some do have a problem, not having been exposed (at least to the point of being able to appreciate) older styles of writing.

Tolkien’s archaism of course came naturally, compared to some who know mostly only pseudo-archaism and Shakespeare. Shakespeare gets thrown at almost every English-speaking person and some end up hating him and his language.

But Tolkien's sources are earlier than Shakespeare and the Latinate Renassiance English that Shakespeare wrote. Tolkien’s language is not the same thing.

Tolkien could read Middle-English prose and poetry fluently. He was more aware than most of the different flavors that a word can have when used in a modern context and an older context. Tolkien knew both intellectually and instinctively what he was doing when he introduced old words and old syntax. He doesn’t make mistakes (unless doing this at all is considered a mistake).

My own feeling on first reading _The Lord of the Rings_ was that one reason Tolkien’s telling felt so authentic was that the language felt authentic for the material he related, whether it was Hobbit colloquialisms and Ioreth’s babbling or the high style of the Denethor and Aragorn and Éowyn. Tolkien fluently and almost unnoticeably changed his style of narration to fit. When the change was noticeable it was entirely suitable to the context.

It is somewhat of a shock to open _The Two Towers_ to one of the sections where no Hobbits appear and to see how archaic the language is when one dives into it in this fashion rather than being slowly and gradually led into it by reading the tale from the beginning.

I don’t mean Tolkien's narration is perfect. There is no such thing. (But different critics pick such different passage to praise or blame.)

And Tolkien is not unique in mixing old and modern language. Rudyard Kipling did so. Even Mark Twain did so. William Morris of course wrote a great deal in an invented archaic style which Tolkien imitated in his earliest writings. Some people cannot stand it. They are insensitive to the fun Morris was having with English. Some of those same people have no problems with James Joyce’s playing with English.

There seem to be politically correct and politically incorrect ways of playing with English.

I _think_ that generally most of Tolkien's readers find his old language part of what they like about _The Lord of the Rings_ and that those who do not like it are those who don’t like archaic language in any author.

Whether this works in another language depends, or course, on the translator as well as on what a particular reader might feel about use of archaic language in general. I don’t know whether there are examples of old Bulgarian literature to which Bulgarians are normally exposed as part of normal culture, things comparable to Shakespeare and Sir Thomas Malory (and Thor comics) or (but not so much today) the King James Bible translation. And I don't how capable the translator was in producing older Bulgarian that was suitable in tone.

I've read pseudo-archaism in English that I thought was awful. I've also read pseudo-archaism that I thought good and others thought awful and vice versa.


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## Aiwendil2 (Nov 11, 2003)

If any are interested, there's a debate going on over at the Barrow-downs regarding Tolkien's use of archaic language (though the thread begins with a slightly different topic): Dumbing Down the Books


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## Lhunithiliel (Nov 15, 2003)

Aiwendil, I would like to THANK YOU for the opportunity to read that thread. I am still in its depths  and I find it MOST interesting!!!! 
I hope jallan also has read. 
Now.. I have a few things to say as "echoing" that discussion ...but not yet... not untill I've finished reading through it all.
However, there is one thing (among many others !) that strongly impressed me - discussing the issue of "pro"-s and "con"-s in using a more "archaic" language when writing epics, some people refer to "War and Peace" stating that the language used there is NOT archaic. 
I wonder did they read the book in original, meaning in Russian?
For I did while living in Russia. And to be honest, I would say that there IS some archaism to be found! Especially in the direct speech of the characters! There are words, expressions and whole structures that are no more used in modern Russian. 
So... how can those people claim that this specific book is free from archaism ? Because to claim such a thing one should've read the book in original!
The same is the case with Tolkien.
While reading LOTR first, it was the translated version. But knowing the English language (though not an ex[pert like Bêthberry from the BD), I still "sensed" the presence of the more "archaic" English that the translator tried to transfer into his translation. This "transfer" however was not very successful IMHO and this , btw, made me look for the original. 

But I find here a MAJOR difference!
It is ONE thing to comment on archaism in language when the mother tongue is concerned and quite ANOTHER issue when commenting archaism in the language of another nation!

What I mean is that archaic language is inevitably bound to the history of a certain nation/people/country. 
For me, being a foreigner, the archaic language I witness in the Silmarillion and in many parts of the LOTR, only help me "feel" the "atmosphere" of the story and I therefore never question it! On the contrary! I find it most suitable and I enjoy it greatly!

But when it comes to the use of archaic language in my mother tonge, used to represent "archaic" times (if I may call them so), then the "magic" is lost. Why? Because the use of archaic Bulgarian (in my case) triggers into my mind that part of the history of my own people and country when that language was used and THAT history is so far and "alien" to the history of England that the old-fashion Bulgarian used all of a sudden gets to have a completely opposite effect than the intended one! 

It's such a pity I cannot give examples, for they would mean nothing to you!  But I suppose you understand what I mean.
And to explain it a bit more... the "old-fashion" Bulgarian used in the translation of the LOTR (in particular) brings to my mind (and to any Bulgarian reader's mind) the "air" of our own histroy and it sounds .... "not in the right place" (so to put it mildly) when used to describe events that happened in lands far away from ours and to represent a culture/folklore/historical background etc. so different from ours.

I will certainly post some more thoughts when I finish reading through the whole of the discussion in the BD. 

Once again, thank you for the link provided!


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## jallan (Nov 15, 2003)

Lhunithel posted:


> And to explain it a bit more... the "old-fashion" Bulgarian used in the translation of the LOTR (in particular) brings to my mind (and to any Bulgarian reader's mind) the "air" of our own histroy and it sounds .... "not in the right place" (so to put it mildly) when used to describe events that happened in lands far away from ours and to represent a culture/folklore/historical background etc. so different from ours.


If I understand you, the problem is that archaic Bulgarian tends to sound too firmly Bulgarian and only Bulgarian (but modern Bulgarian does not).

Archaic English has a different feel. The King James Bible translation was really a reworking of earlier translations and so already archaic in its own time and so blamed by many when it was first released.

But until the middle of the twentieth century it was _the_ translation. But of course it does not speak of English matters and is very literal, often rendering Hebrew idioms word by word. Though many of these Hebrew idioms have since entered into English the language and the translation was great revered it’s language was not felt to be especially English. Rather it was a language of long ago and far away (as well as being a language on which hymn and prayers and such were based).

That style was often used as a basis for other translations from Greek or Latin or other tongues, such as Sir Richard Burton’s translation of _The 1001 Nights_ from Arabic.

Along with this tradition of translation there is a stream of archaic medieval language beginning with Walter Scott’s _Ivanhoe_ and continuing through novels and tales of medieval times or earlier times. But it is not limited to tales set in England. None of William Morris’s romances written in his own archaic style based in part on Old Norse are explicitly or at all set in England.

And only some of Shakespeare’s plays are set in England.

So to the English ear there is nothing especially odd in reading a translation of Hindu folk tales in something like Elizabethan English or an Icelandic saga or The Book of Popul Voh or indeed any old literature. Rudyard Kipling regularly rendered eastern languages by a kind of archaic English including the words _thee_ and _thou_.

There were complaints about archaic style being used for such things and currently the complainers have won. Modern translations mostly use minimal archaism. But the complaints were that archaism was itself a bad translation tehnique, not that it felt unsuitable because it was English archaic language.

Indeed, often it wasn’t especially English. Use of archaic language seemed to make it easer to render foreign idioms word for word without sounding stilted because oddities (to the modern ear) of word and expression are expected to appear in archaic language. This of course can be and was badly used by some.

I should mention also that use of archaic language did not have any particular political or philosophical connotations other than the particular idiosyncratic ideas that a writer might have as to how to write using archaic langauge.

In literature it either marked the medieval specifically or marked a tale as being set far off in time or space or both, in part indicating that the tale was probably not English (or was medieval English).

To English ears archaic language tends to feel timeless and placeless, though individual uses may make time and place very evident.


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## Lhunithiliel (Nov 15, 2003)

First of all, tell me, do you participate in that discussion at the BD too? 
For there's one person there who has your style of expressing and even a similar name.
Anyway, here, or there, it's always a pleasure to read you! 

But I wanted in fact to bring a little .... what to call it.... clarification.
When we say "archaic Bulgarian" or "archaic _any language_" how much back in time do we go?
According to what I've just read, what you're explaining here is that the English "archaic" language has several variants - the Bible style, the medieval style etc.

In fact this is the same what we have here and I suppose the same phenomenon is to be observed with all the languages spoken in Europe.

There is one style=variant of "archaic" language used for Biblical stories.Yet other styles are used for various historical periods of time. . For example the language used for the Greek Myths is very different from the one used in Romeo and Juliet, which in turn is very different from .... say... stories from the 18-th century...
But all are said to be 'archaic". Right? And thus we call them from the point of view of our modern-times language.

What I wanted to explain is that when I am saying "archaic" English I am aware of everything that you have explained in your post above. 
But the same is applicable to my mother tongue as well! There are various "archaic" styles in it too.

My point is that when using one or another "archaic" style, one should take into consideration perhaps the usually accepted by the readers style. By "usual" I mean the one that people expect to read in when a story from a certain historical period of time is concerned.
To make myself clear - one would not expect to find the Bible-style archaic language in a story like Romeo and Juliet (for ex.) or in fairy tales.

Now... this principle, when applied in translating foreign authors becomes even harder to avoid. We, as readers are used to read the Greek Myths (for ex.) in one specific "archaic" style of language and if this same style is used to tell a story from the Bible (or v.v..) it will sound ... "out of place". 
But here also comes another difficulty - the one which I was speaking about in my previous post. 
I am used to read in one specific "archaic" style the works of _our_ national writers from 18-th or 19-th century (for ex.) and it has become a "stereotype" language for the literature of that specific historical time. But as this particular style of language tells about particular events in a particular time from our national history and in a particular place on our national territory, the "stereotype" becomes even stronger. The mind just automatically triggers the specific time from the national history used to be described in this particular style of language. And what is more, this style becomes more than ever "national" as it was used by national writers.
So far so good! Nothing extraordinary or unusual.

But all of a sudden this 18-th/19-th-century-and-very-national archaic style is being used to describe events and the speech of characters from times and places that have nothing to do with the "national" times and places.
And what happens is that the mind automatically gets confused! And it refuses to understand fully and in all its beauty the story told.
This is what happened to my mind when reading LOTR in translation. And I did not like it.

I am dealing with translation daily. I know that in order to make a good one out of even a most prosaic manual, I have to use a style and structure of a language which is expected by the one who is later going to read it! And when it comes to literature, it becomes even harder. 
I realize that it all comes down to a "patternized" state of mind. I hate it as I hate any patterns.... but there seems not to be any way out! It is as it is! 
I would've been more than delighted to hear a priest telling me a story from the Bible in a more modern style, which i am more easily to understand, but .... no. He uses the Bible-pattern style! Yet my mind is happy with such a pattern because it is used to the "fact" that a Biblical story should sound in this specific language and not in any other! 
Just as well, my mind will understand and fully accept and be happy with "M'Lady" or "M'Lord" NOT translated when I am reading a story that is happening in an English language speaking country, while it will certainly "feel" dull and confused if these were translated in my moter's tongue.
I guess any mind is happy when dealing with such patterns.

A translator should therefore be very careful when chosing one or another variant out of the various ones that the "archaic" or/and the modern mother tongue has.


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## jallan (Nov 15, 2003)

Lhunithiel posted:


> First of all, tell me, do you participate in that discussion at the BD too?
> For there's one person there who has your style of expressing and even a similar name.


Yes, that is me, though I don’t post there regularly.

Lhunithiel posted:


> There is one style=variant of "archaic" language used for Biblical stories.Yet other styles are used for various historical periods of time. . For example the language used for the Greek Myths is very different from the one used in Romeo and Juliet, which in turn is very different from .... say... stories from the 18-th century...
> But all are said to be 'archaic". Right? And thus we call them from the point of view of our modern-times language.


Yes.

Tolkien’s archaism is very much like that of William Morris which feels general European with a very northern flavor. But Tolkien tones down the archaism and the northerness.

Walter Scott archaism which when badly imitated is called Wardour Street English or tushery is far more obviously high medieval (though as it developed it became less and less genuinely medieval as modern authors writing stories in this dialect increasingly imitated each other rather than actual medieval writing).

Eighteenth century English would be called old-fashioned rather than archaic. We are talking now of gentlemen squires and western adventurers and pirates. Kinghthood has gone to seed.

I certainly wouldn’t know exactly what would suit in Bulgarian for archaic Tolkien. But it should feel medieval or older.

I have a feeling that one needs a translator who has been immersed in pre-Ottoman Bulgarian literature and who could write in prose that was understandable to moderns but would be suggestive of that period.


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## Lhunithiliel (Nov 16, 2003)

> _Originally posted by jallan _
> I certainly wouldn’t know exactly what would suit in Bulgarian for archaic Tolkien. But it should feel medieval or older.
> 
> I have a feeling that one needs a translator who has been immersed in pre-Ottoman Bulgarian literature and who could write in prose that was understandable to moderns but would be suggestive of that period.


Medieval IMO. But the one particular type that a Bulgarian reader is used to reading in when it comes to stories about knights, princes and princesses..... The type Don Quijote is read in.(for ex.)

Older - no. And a pre-Otoman ... Oh! This is already, I'm afraid, rather a dead language than a language that could be called "archaic". 12-th - 14-th century. Or perhaps I'd better call it "archaic" and the later ones - "old-fashioned".   

BTW, if Tolkien's styles are "archaic" then imagine how he sounds translated in the 19-th-century-national-style!

I do think however that it would be wrong to use only one style.
I personally do not object even a slightest bit against the different styles Tolkien used. I like it!  And I think that if I were to translate him I should apply different styles as well....

Thank you for this most interesting discussion!


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## jallan (Nov 16, 2003)

Lhunithiel posted:


> Medieval IMO. But the one particular type that a Bulgarian reader is used to reading in when it comes to stories about knights, princes and princesses..... The type Don Quijote is read in.(for ex.)


That sounds exactly right.


> Older - no. And a pre-Otoman ... Oh! This is already, I'm afraid, rather a dead language than a language that could be called "archaic".


One would certainly not use that language as it is found any more than Walter Scott used Middle English as he found it. 

In his introduction to _Ivanhoe_ Walter Scott explains his philosophy and method of solving the problem of making the dialogue in _Ivanhoe_ seem authentically medieval without using medieval English as actually written.

If you have not read this, do see Ivanhoe and search for “Dryasdust”.

The oddity is that to an early twenty-first century reader Scott’s normal early nineteenth century writing style may seem more out of date and artificial than the truly artificial language of his medieval dialogues.

All things being equal, someone like Walter Scott or William Morris or J.R.R. Tolkien who knows Middle English or even Old English fluently is more likely to be able to create an adaption of it in modern English that more authentically conveys the flavor of the original.

However unintelligable the authentic old language as a whole is to a modern reader, there are individual phrases which may be rendered with little or no change or with half-translation and there are outmoded ways of saying things that can be translated word by word.

Tolkien’s archaic language (even in Isildur’s account of the ring) is less so than the language in Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte D'Arthur which is normally published with change of spelling only as still very readable by moderns, with very occasional checking of a glossary. The language is far simpler than most eighteenth century English literary prose.


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## Elbereth (Nov 23, 2003)

Ok....is it just me or has the topic of this thread been completely ignored. I'm sure whatever you are discussing is oh so interesting to you...but after scanning the discussion, I have found it to be completely off topic from the thread's original purpose. Now I have no problem to have the discussion end if there is nothing more to say about the topic at hand. But this disregard for the thread's original purpose is simply annoying. 

Now I realize you people don't have respect for me as a scholar on TTF....but I would have expected that you would have respect enough to at least stay on the topic and give me something to work with here....and you wonder why I don't post in these threads anymore.


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## Lhunithiliel (Nov 24, 2003)

Oh! Elbereth-Giltoniel!

Yes, I agree we lost the topic of this thread. It's just that we got ....carried away...  

But the point is, our off-topic discussion has stopped and you can turn the original topic back.

And why do you underestimate your 'schollary" knowledge in Tolkien?! I have read your posts and I know you can have a solid "schollary" approach towards a topic when you want. I don't believe your knowledge is less than mine, say,...if not even larger.
And it's always been a pleasure to read you! 
So... me and jallan have stepped off the road and it is now clear for discussing further the main topic of this thread. 

Sincerely
Lhun


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## Walter (Nov 24, 2003)

Let's suppose you are a teacher, Elbereth. You enter class one morning, bring a sheet of paper and a couple of coloured pencils. You draw a sun into one of the upper corners and tell the children to draw a garden with a couple of nice trees and then leave the class saying: "Draw!"

Now if you don't show up for a couple of days without poking your nose in every now and then, would you be surprised if you found the children have - after having drawn a few trees - moved on to drawing a house, cars and whatnot else? After a few days scarcely anyone thought the teacher would ever show up again, anyway....

A thread, if it is supposed to develop the way the one who started it intends, needs some careful "gardening". One shouldn't be surprised if it went off topic within some 40 days of absence. 

But I agree with Lhun, please go on with your original topic, I wouldn't think there is much damage done with a little discussion which is highly interesting, but somewhat off-topic.


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## Elbereth (Nov 24, 2003)

Yes I realize, Walter that I should have spoken up long before, when I first saw the topic veer off track. However, I figured that you folks here in the book threads would bring the conversation back to the subject at hand...as you all seem so adament about keeping threads on TTF on topic and spam-free. I guess I overestimated you all. 

However, don't lecture me about how one should manage a thread. Believe me, if I had more time to commit to this section, I would rule it with an iron fist. (just ask the Periaur...I can be very strict when I want to be.) But then again, I came in here and started this topic...because I am interested in this topic and wanted to discuss it and learn...and have fun. I didn't realize that because I started a topic in this section it would have to turn into a chore. Sorry...I didn't realize that was how things are run here now. My mistake. 




PS: Lhun & Jallan, there are no hard feelings directed toward you...but I'm sure if you put yourself in my place you could understand why I was so perturbed. 

With that said...let's drop this and get the topic back on track.


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## Lhunithiliel (Nov 25, 2003)

Elbereth, why be so bitter about other people's opinions? Walter was not criticisizing you. Just explaining how it came that the topic of your thread was lost. Besides, he very well knows what it is to run a thread and even a whole web-site, believe me! His knowledge of that matter is much larger than mine or yours as he himself runs a site which happens to be a much bigger place than this single thread. Why not take a good advice instead of getting angry? I am really surprised to see you attacking the so called by you "book-people"!  

You may "rule" with whatever fist you like but really... I don't see any reason to be so angry and frustrated! 


> I figured that you folks here in the book threads would bring the conversation back to the subject at hand...as you all seem so adament about keeping threads on TTF on topic and spam-free.


Was there any spamming, Elbereth?  



> But then again, I came in here and started this topic...because I am interested in this topic and wanted to discuss it and learn...and have fun.


It very much depends on how you understand "discuss and learn" and "have fun".

But ... anyway, I suggest we stopped arguing about this!

I am looking forward to see you bringing back to life the original topic of this thread.


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## Walter (Nov 25, 2003)

There is indeed one thing I find rather puzzling about the Ainur. In the _Book of Lost Tales I_ we learn:


> Behold, Ilúvatar dwelt alone. Before all things he sang into being the Ainur first, and greatest is their power and glory of all his creatures within the world and without. Thereafter he fashioned them dwellings in the void, and dwelt among them, teaching them all manner of things, and the greatest of these was music.
> 
> BoLT1 - Ainulindalë



As a sidenote, this part somehow reminds of the _Kalevala_, where "singing" represents a magical way of creating, changing or moving things. In "The Singing Match" it sounds quite impressive:


> The old Väinämöinen sang:
> the lakes rippled, the earth shook,
> the copper mountains trembled
> the sturdy boulders rumbled
> ...



In the published "Silmarillion" no details are mentioned about _how_ Eru created the Ainur:


> There was Eru, the One, who in Arda is called Ilúvatar; and he made first the Ainur, the Holy Ones, that were the offspring of his thought, and they were with him before aught else was made.


After the creation of Eä many of the Ainur enter Eä and a few of them become the "Valar".

Now, this "Genealogy" of the Valar would suggest that they are all brethren or siblings, representing purely spiritual - or angelic, as Tolkien preferred - beings. 

But already in the next chapter ("The coming of the Valar" in BoLT1 or the "Valaquenta" in the Sil) it sounds rather different. There the Valar very much resemble the Aesir of the Eddas - or even the Greek/Roman pantheon - with various relationships, family-trees, different traits, etc. One is tempted to look for similarities between Manwë and Odin or Zeus, Melkor and Loki, Tulkas and Thor or Tyr (except that Melkor gets Mjöllnir/Grond ), Ulmo and Poseidon, etc.,etc.. And overall, in the Lost Tales and the Silmarillion, the Valar somehow appear much less spiritual or angelic, in fact rather mundane, at times with serious shortcomings.

But the question which arises now is: "How does this fit together?". Why this sudden change from one chapter to the next in the oldest version? Why such relationships?


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