Translation style and Njal's Saga

[Richard Turner]

Hello all - I've been absent for a while simply because I hadn't set a notification for this forum. That is now fixed.
I would now like to introduce something different: translation. I'm planning a "bucket list" trip to Iceland in May and June - something I've wanted to do since I did a superficial study of Old Norse as part of my English degree. I remembered trying to read Njal's Saga in the original so that was my first choice of background reading for my adventure. I chose online a translation by Carl F Bayerschmitt and Lee M Hollander, and it wasn't long before I began to regret my choice.

It seems to me that they get so many things wrong. They translate place names from forms such as "fjordur" into "firth" which is less common in English than "fjord", but don't translate "skald" which presumably means "scold" but is not a word I've come across before in English. They anglicise names such as "Hallgerðr " into "Hallgerd". Why?

The text reads like a translation, and this is the most difficult and important issue - style. Their style is an awkward mixture of the sparse, plain style of the original and modern idioms such as this:

"I'm ready to do that" he said; and he spoke three or four verses, and all were vicious.
"Your a brick, doing just what I want you to!" said Hallgerd.

Any thoughts on this?

 

[Robinne Weiss]

A truly good translator is a rarity, I think. It takes incredible skill to translate, not just the words, but also the cadence, deeper meaning, and flow of the original. That's why I read Allende in the original Spanish. She has a great translator, and her books are great in English, as well, but some subtleties are lost.

I just finished reading The Man with the Compound Eyes, by Wu Ming-Yi. Translated from Taiwanese, it is clunky in spots, but the quirky feel of the original shines through. Whether that's good or not, you'd have to say for yourself--the book is the literary equivalent of a surrealist painting, full of broken characters and devoid of any real plot--but I found it delightful in its own, weird way.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

A skald is a bard, I think. Not a scold though, for sure

So many of our words do come from Old Norse ie runes which began as their alphabet well before their associations with magical or divinatory practice. And it's thought their runes may have come from ancient Greek via trade.. Some examples of runes into modern English....fee comes from Fehu, answer from Ansuz, gift from Gyfu, Man from Mannaz, lake from Laguz.

Trouble is, these are all oral tradition plus one early Pope, maybe Leo or Gregory outlawed runes. They did disgusting things to people to suppress runes and other expressions of earlier pagan culture, and there is to this day a big gap in our certainty about the correct spelling and pronunciation of these Norse words, sometimes their meaning.

But as you see from these few word examples above, it ain't that easy to kill an alphabet at whatever stage of evolution.

 

[Richard Turner]

A truly good translator is a rarity, I think. It takes incredible skill to translate, not just the words, but also the cadence, deeper meaning, and flow of the original. That's why I read Allende in the original Spanish. She has a great translator, and her books are great in English, as well, but some subtleties are lost.

I just finished reading The Man with the Compound Eyes, by Wu Ming-Yi. Translated from Taiwanese, it is clunky in spots, but the quirky feel of the original shines through. Whether that's good or not, you'd have to say for yourself--the book is the literary equivalent of a surrealist painting, full of broken characters and devoid of any real plot--but I found it delightful in its own, weird way.

Not sure I could cope with the compound eyes man, but thanks for the contribution. Perhaps I am being a bit harsh on the translators.

 

[Richard Turner]

A skald is a bard, I think. Not a scold though, for sure

So many of our words do come from Old Norse ie runes which began as their alphabet well before their associations with magical or divinatory practice. And it's thought their runes may have come from ancient Greek via trade.. Some examples of runes into modern English....fee comes from Fehu, answer from Ansuz, gift from Gyfu, Man from Mannaz, lake from Laguz.

Trouble is, these are all oral tradition plus one early Pope, maybe Leo or Gregory outlawed runes. They did disgusting things to people to suppress runes and other expressions of earlier pagan culture, and there is to this day a big gap in our certainty about the correct spelling and pronunciation of these Norse words, sometimes their meaning.

But as you see from these few word examples above, it ain't that easy to kill an alphabet at whatever stage of evolution.

I must admit to knowing very little about runes. Are the examples you give - Ansuz etc.- from transcriptions of runes or old Greek. The z at the end looks like Basque or Arabic to me - not that I know anything about either!

 

[Katie-Ellen]

The oral tradition of Runes. Spelling is basically scholarly guesswork.