Re: [TIED] Beekes' Translation English.

From: Marc Verhaegen

(Mark, I had to read several sentences in Dutch several times, and still don't understand everything.)

Beekes writes in the 'Foreward' to the English translation of his Great Book:    This book is a revision of the original book, Vergelijkende taalwetenschap, which was published in 1990 [...]. It was written in a direct everyday-dutch; it was intended that this character is preserved in the translation, which was made by Paul Gabriner.    Is the Great Man being droll? Does a translation of everyday-Dutch require you to make mistakes in English capitalization?    Marc's comments sound like those Germans who claim they have to read Hegel in English-translation in order to understand what is being said.                     Again. Is the Great Man being droll? Is he suggesting his everyday-Dutch is difficult for even highly educated native-speakers of Dutch? Piotr's paraphrase of my paraphrase clarified what I misunderstood. I'm asking if Beekes is a less than graceful, less than clear author.     Mark.

 

MV: Well, I re-read a few things in Beekes. He's right. It is everyday Dutch. It's not his style that is difficult (to the contrary perhaps -- it gives a false impression that everything is very simple), but rather the stuff. Beekes seems to know what he's talking about & says it in grammatically clear sentences. But his knowledge is so much greater than mine (I know only a bit about Latin & Romance & German languages, & I'm no linguist) that I have difficulties in following his logic. I guess Glen or Piotr have no problems in reading Beekes. At least, if it's tanslated properly. I can't judge that, but I can imagine that Gabriner also had difficulties in translating this difficult stuff (although the sentence you mentioned was not difficult at all in Dutch, and could have been translated better IMO).

Marc Verhaegen
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