Hello Dirk!
You wrote that such and such
would be appropriate depending
on the semantic
context in which it was written, i.e. the author's
intentionality.
I agree entirely! Working as an interpreter
on a daily basis this is my constant nightmare - being confident of conveying
the speaker's intended message fully. I often despair of consistently
achieving this goal - and I am working in real time. How much more
difficult for us when translating something written hundreds of years earlier,
by people in a very different culture! I would be more than happy with
your version "Thorsteins good serf" - just wish I'd thought of it myself!
Keep the comments rolling in - that's how we all
learn :-)
Cheers,
Sarah.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, October 28, 2004 5:54
PM
Subject: [norse_course] Re: I am
learning
Sarah,
When I translate ON sentences, my goal is
to try to learn ON,
therefore, I try to in essence, metamorphisize English
into Old
Norse. Meaning, by making a litteral translation, you are
changing
contemporary semantics to closer to OE. So here is my
take:
bondi is common in ON as being translated as "farmer" because
that
is what a bondi normally did. Farm. But, literally, bondi would
translate to bond, to be bound to and thus is not totally free. Now
a
bondi may be bonded to a land, to society via social norms, i.e.
class
restrictions, or to a person, as in fuedal relations.
"Þorsteins bónda
góðs"
Literally Thorstein's good bond which implies some degree
of
relation which, IMO, would be bond dependent on the frauja or
lord.
At any rate, I would translate it as "Thorsteins good serf" which
implies the relationship and tries to stay true to the original ON
text as possible. It could also translate as "Thorstein's good
slave"
but I think this would be correct because if that was the
intention of the
author it would been written as "Thorsteins bonda
thrael" not "bondi".
Farmer or Serf would be appropriate depending
on the semantic context in
which it was written, i.e. the author's
intentionality.
Hann fór útan vestr þar í fjörðum
með umráði Þorsteins bónda góðs,
ok Þóris stýrimanns,
he fared out west
of the Fjords with
(Umraði) of Thorstein, a good bondsman and Thorir the
Steersman (or
Captain) - yes! It is hard to find an
appropriate equivalent for
bónda góðs - perhaps good yeoman or just good
farmer [to me bondsman
implies something more along the lines of a servant
- but, hey,
we're really nit-picking now
:-)!!]
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