Page 1 of 1

Words.

PostPosted: Sat Jan 08, 2011 12:14 pm
by Silent Warrior
New translator on the block, yay!

Regarding those Words-journals... I was wondering just how archaic we should make the translations. For now, I've settled for some kind of archaism-lite - only the words - but I could go even farther and use some of the way old conjugations and expressions (gingo, begråten, på det att man må ...). The problem with that is that these are supposed to be retranslations made by a guy from present time, so it should be fairly de-archaic-ised already... If no-one commands anything else, I'll keep the archaism-lite approach.

(ametist: Jo, våra ansträngningar överlappar, men jag är inte överens med din översättning i en del viktiga fall - den direkta betydelsen skiljer sig ganska markant mellan våra försök. Om du vill veta vad som inte föll mig i smaken är jag öppen för diskussion.)

Now... All swede-speaking/understanding go vote, fer Pete's sake! :twisted:

Re: Words.

PostPosted: Sat Jan 08, 2011 10:21 pm
by OHB
I don't think I'd go TOO archaic...after all they were written and D'ni and /recently/ translated.

Try to keep the tone of the text in tact as much as possible.

Re: Words.

PostPosted: Sun Jan 09, 2011 12:47 am
by Silent Warrior
The tone of the text, that's sort of the issue... The base text looks like it needs a centuries old bible to get the words from, but then, I'm not familiar with how archaisms developed in English. Very well, I'll be careful. Somewhat old words, and modernised grammar it is.

Re: Words.

PostPosted: Sun Jan 09, 2011 1:22 am
by OHB
There aren't really old words there. To me, the reason it sounds so distinctive is the style of writing. It's kinda poetic and prophetic. There are religious overtones.

Keep in mind that English has a very different writing style than does spoken English. All of those grammar rules are applied to formal writing and are often ignored when speaking. Things like ending a sentence with a preposition.

Guess what I'm thinking of? -> Guess of what I'm thinking?

That change makes the text sound archaic even though it's really not. It's just not spoken English. I think some of the same things are going on with the text in the Words journals - and with Yeesha's speeches.

Use your best judgement. Remember that this is a collaborative process. Someone else might come along and improve on your translation.

Re: Words.

PostPosted: Sun Jan 09, 2011 2:25 am
by kaelisebonrai
In my opinion, however, words /is/ a very dramatic/semi-archaic. It has more formal overtones than standard written english. =)

Try looking at a modern bible for hints on how you'd style it - because words is written in much the same was as a modern english bible. =)

Re: Words.

PostPosted: Sun Jan 09, 2011 5:59 am
by Silent Warrior
Eh, I'm not on touching terms with most holy scriptures - I'm an atheist (and, well, a supporter of the Flying Spaghetti Monster :D ). Anyway, I think I have this down.
Any improvements or alternate translations to my own are welcome, certainly.

Re: Words.

PostPosted: Sun Jan 09, 2011 3:14 pm
by OHB
Silent Warrior wrote:Eh, I'm not on touching terms with most holy scriptures - I'm an atheist (and, well, a supporter of the Flying Spaghetti Monster :D ). Anyway, I think I have this down.
Any improvements or alternate translations to my own are welcome, certainly.


As I am, but it's a good point. That's what I meant by religious overtones.