Hi Xigung!
Good to hear from you - you always come up with things that really make me
think! And that is good because I am still only a beginner (started last
Sept) and it's easy to rely on what my lecturers tell me and not take that
closer look the way you do.
Words are such fascinating things and so difficult to translate because
there are different approaches. You mention the etymological approach:
"láta" should be the same as English "to let". Well, I'm not sure the
etymological route is necessarily the best way. It may work best for
languages which are still sufficiently closely related to ON (such as
mainland Scandinavian languages and possibly German). But on the whole I
prefer to grasp the meaning of a word or phrase and translate that, even if
it means moving away somewhat from the structure of the source language.
Let me give you a couple of examples using "láta". Two are from modern
Icelandic (which is more similar to ON than any other language) and two from
Old Norse itself.
The first is from a translation of Einar Áskell we read at college...
"Einar Áskell lætur hundinn sækja spýtur, setjast á rassin og fleira og
fleira" Here the context is of a boy giving a dog commands - go fetch! sit!
etc etc. I don't think you could reasonably translate the verb "láta" with
the English "let" - it would be something like 'he made the dog go fetch
bits of wood, sit on his haunches and so on'. Or he told the dog, he
ordered the dog, he had the dog go fetch etc.
The second is from another children's book....
"Mamma hafði meira að segja gleymt að láta Jón Bjarna bursta í sér tennurnar
í kvöld". Again I don´t think the English word "let" is appropriate here.
What child is eager that their parent should 'let' them brush their teeth at
night!?!!
These examples, like the Bodvar one, use láta + infinitive giving the
meaning to cause something to be done or command to be done.
Here's one from Hrafnkel's Saga near the beginning of ch. 4. "Þat er ráð
mitt, at þú látir reka at hesta vára, ok búumsk heim." This is my advice,
that you have our horses driven in and we make for home.
And another from the same saga, at the beginning of ch.5.
"Þorgeirr valði lið sitt ok lét sér fylgja fjóra tigu manna." Thorgeir
picked his band and had 40 men go with him.
I agree it would be nice if the structure of English were more similar to
other Germanic languages and we could therefore stay closer to the structure
of ON, but I don't think we can in this case. At least, not without losing
something of the original meaning and making the English look 'translated'.
As for "því", yes that's certainly a tricky little word in this context!!!
Perhaps you're right, the original meaning did contain some element of
comparison and so the dative was used.
Lastly, you mention about
"Kómusk þá fyrir Hrólf konung öll sannindi hér um"
and you are right, the subject of the verb is "öll sannindi".
Sannindi is a neuter plural noun and
öll is the neuter plural form of 'allr'.
The more I study language, the more fascinated I become by the variety of
constructions languages use to express meaning. Sometimes there is a
clearly recognisable overlap from one language to another, and sometimes
there just isn't!!!
Kveðja,
Sarah.
----- Original Message -----
From: "xigung" <xigung@...>
To: <norse_course@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 27, 2003 7:53 PM
Subject: [norse_course] Re: bodhvarr translated
Hi Sarah!
And thank you for your replies.
I cannot help myself but take up a few of your points !
Actually, the text is _full_ of small problems,
problems that don't affect the over all meaning of
the text, but are nevertheless vital if you want to
be able to say that you understand the text.
I pick out a few points that don't seem entirely
clear to me. That means that I may be mistaken
that there is a problem, but nevertheless, taking
a closer look is always a god excercise.
> ok vildu þeir láta drepa manninn.
> and now they wanted to kill the man.
> I think we need to get the sense of "láta" into the English here.
> E.g. and they wanted to have the man killed.
láta ought to be the same as English "to let", literally
"they wanted to let kill the man", which is not good English.
Somehow English wants to say it like
"they wanted to let the man *be* killed".
German syntax "Und wollten sie den Mann töten lassen",
is more like Old Norse, except that German puts the
verbs at the end of the sentence. Danish is also
close to ON "og vilde de lade dræbe manden".
But I think it is better Danish to say:
"og vilde de lade manden dræbes", i.e. they use
the passive 'dræbes'.
> "Því var næsta",
> "very close"
> This is a phrase or expression in ON and is translated in English
as "very nearly so" or "almost".
> For what it's worth, the grammar is
> næsta - nearly (adverb)
> því - (to) that (demonstrative pronoun in the dative)
I believe því also has some other meanings, beside
the pronoun. I recall reading about this once, and
the conclusion was that the Danish "thi" is the same
word. {An example from H.C. Andersen is: "Der var engang
fem og tyve Tinsoldater, de vare alle Brødre, thi de vare
fødte af en gammel Tinskee", from "The Tin Soldier"}
But here in this example, "Því var næsta", I just don't
know. Why a dative? If the pronoun was subject
(i.e. "it was almost"), then the logic demands a nominative.
The dictionary remarks that því is sometimes used as a
reinforcer for comparatives. Also, about things temporal
it says that því næst means "right after". A kind of
explanation might be to read it in "pseudo-English"
as "next after that"; then the dative would presumably
derive from a suppressed preposition "after".
Our phrase "Því var næsta" might then be read as
"[it] was next to that" (where "next" stands for "close").
> Kómusk þá fyrir Hrólf konung oll sannindi hér um. Hrólfr konungr
sagði þat skyldu fjarri, at drepa skyldi manninn
> They told the king how this had happened. When whole the truth had
been revealed to the king he told them not to kill the man.
> Again, you've conveyed the meaning but the English words do not
stick very close to the original. More literally, it would be...
>
> Then all the truth about this came out before King Hrolf. King
Hrolf said that by no means should they kill the man.
Here I thought I saw a problem in what the subject of
the verb 'koma' is. It has to be a plural, and it
could be the people, as a plural group, who come
to talk about it with the king. Fyrir should take
accusative for the situation of a meeting, and this
agrees with the accusative Hrolf. But the plural could
also be sannendi. What does the adjective öll have to
say about this? It can be plural neutrum nom/acc,
but also singular feminine nom. The solution might
be that "truth" (sannendi) is the plural that comes
before the king. (which agrees with the translations)
With best regards
Xigung
P.S. Keep your posts coming !
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