who knows Italian? :D

[Monica]

I have a quote in Italian, it's from "The Island of the Day Before" by Eco, and I was wondering if anyone could translate it for me :p

"Stolto! a cui parlo? Misero! Che tento?
Racconto il dolor mio
a l'insensata riva
a la mutola selce, al sordo vento...
Ahi, ch'altro non risponde
che il mormorar del'onde!"

Giovani Battista Marino "Eco," La Lina, xix


I hope I wrote it right :D

[Jay]

100% sure Koa speaks Italian :p

[Monica]

I hope she does :D

[Jay]

She would as she's Italian :p

[Monica]

Quite right :nod: :D

[Maxos]

Eccomi mia gentil donzella, ch'io accorro all'uopo!

Fool! Whom am I talking to? What shall I try?
I am telling my pain to the (an adjective for something that cannot perceive through the senses) shore,
to the dumb rock, to the deaf wind...
Oh! For nothing answers to me
but the murmuring of the waves

Giovan Battista Marino is a great author of the seventeenth century whose work was not considered until the first half of the '900.

[Monica]

Thanks Maxos. Now it makes sense as a motto for the book. As I've written before, Eco is a genius :D Was Marino that guy who created marinism?

Btw what does your words in Italian mean? :p

[Koa]

uh, glad I was spared the job... :D

couldn't 'insensata' be translated as 'meaningless'...?

I'm still convinced that translation in general is just pain... Nothing remains the same.

[mono]

I'm still convinced that translation in general is just pain... Nothing remains the same.
I strongly agree and emphasize with you here, Koa. I cannot call myself fluent in French, but I can translate most things French-English/English-French. Most difficulty resides in the constant evolution of language, especially slang and use of simile, metaphor, or sarcasm. :confused:

[Taliesin]

Since everyone is busy translating here, perhaps someone could translate this text. We think that it is in old Italian.
It was a text of a song we sang with our choir. We wonder what does it mean.

Ad altre le voidare
ste passate
che non che non
*something we don't remember, but there was a word like locucco*
La triche triche trac
la triche triche trac
e trucco
chaltro stadentr
io di fuor allucco

[happyjing365]

Italian is all Greek to me! and Greek is Italian to me also

[Maxos]

So many intelligent questions and hardly the time to answer them!

1) My words sound like that: "Here I am, my gentle maiden, hurrying to the necessity!"

2) Oh! Orlando di Lasso! One of the greatest composers of the Renaissance!

The song is in neapolitan dialect (I give the, likely, correct version):

Ad altre le voi dare // You want to give them(fem.) to others(fem.)
ste passate //these ???
che non che non //for I for I
lo cucco //cannot get it
La triche triche trac //....(no meaning, just like trallalera trallala)
la triche triche trac //....
e trucco //and I ???
ch'altro sta dentro //for an other is inside
io di fuor allucco //and I outside do complain (like an owl)

3) Yes, Giovan Battista Marino was the ""guy"" who invented Marinism, just like in England J. Donne invented the "metaphisical" poetry.

4) Actually Koa, you noticed the lack lying in every kind of translation, nevertheless, Monica, you found out two Authors who CANNOT virtually be translated! Marino over all, the reason is simple: Baroque poets were the first who felt and tried to express the impossibility for languages (of men, religions, science...) to convey the same message, since they consist in different "physical" parts, their poems are based on "conceit", a poetic image (actually, more than this) where whole realty tries to be retained, with words or sounds sending back to other parts of the poem or reminding of other famous works and so creating a dialogue between a moltitude of fragments of literature, as well as never dared links between various fields of knowledge, such a different ideological context from that shared by the Classicists like Ariosto, Bembo, Machiavelli, Poliziano, Pulci, Boiardo... ! Only the 20th century could appreciate the philosophical depth of some of these authors.

[Koa]

Italian is all Greek to me! and Greek is Italian to me also

LOL that's funny...most people mistake Spanish and Italian...


The song is in neapolitan dialect

Right...before you said that I had convinced myself that it was Milanese... :blush: I'm not going to call myself a linguist anymore...for the next 2 minutes, that is.


I strongly agree and emphasize with you here, Koa. I cannot call myself fluent in French, but I can translate most things French-English/English-French. Most difficulty resides in the constant evolution of language, especially slang and use of simile, metaphor, or sarcasm.

That's not just my point... even plain things can result so much different in a translation... every language has its ways to express things, some meanings can have slight nuances that are impossible to translate, and some words or expressions exist in one language and not in another, or are just expressed in a better way in one language than in another... (btw I once opened a thread where, along with asking practical help with a translation, I wanted to discuss the concept of translation, but I suppose my verbosity made it go unnoticed...)

As we are here, I'll ask one thing about English (I dont feel it deserves a whole thread)
The sentence
I am quite a private person
means:
1) that she's a very private person
2) that she's a rather private person (in that case wouldn't it be 'I am a quite private person???)
(to Maxos: 'sono una persona piuttosto riservata' o 'sono una persona molto riservata'???)

I am translating for an exam the first chapter of an awful book called Mother Tongue - An American Life in Italy... Maxos have you ever heard of it??? It is written by an American woman who moved to Parma... so reading your location made me jump on the chair!!! It is the most awful thing I've ever read, even translating it literally it doesnt make sense at all, and I gave up reading it after the 3rd chapter... (and now Maxos you are going to tell me that you are one of the author's relatives or something....)

[Jay]

imho 'I'm a quite private person' is grammatically incorrect as you're a private person and you wish to stress it (express the degree) by using 'quite'.

It's quite + indefinite article + whatever else you wanna say

[Maxos]

I am translating for an exam the first chapter of an awful book called Mother Tongue - An American Life in Italy... Maxos have you ever heard of it??? It is written by an American woman who moved to Parma... so reading your location made me jump on the chair!!! It is the most awful thing I've ever read, even translating it literally it doesnt make sense at all, and I gave up reading it after the 3rd chapter... (and now Maxos you are going to tell me that you are one of the author's relatives or something....)

I am not.
Anyway I'm afraid I cannot help you since I, apparently fortunately, haven't ever heard about this masterpiece of nonsense-fiction.

About grammar:

You have to read:

I /am a private person/(nominal predicate) + quite (adverb= ad+verbium= something affecting the meaning of a phrase)

whereas:
I /am reading/(verbal predicate) /a difficult book/(object)+quite

[Koa]

imho 'I'm a quite private person' is grammatically incorrect


I think I mentioned she cannot write...



You have to read:

I /am a private person/(nominal predicate) + quite (adverb= ad+verbium= something affecting the meaning of a phrase)

whereas:
I /am reading/(verbal predicate) /a difficult book/(object)+quite

In other words? :confused:
Sometimes I feel like my QI is below the minimum consented by law...
Maybe it's because this looks like maths... language is feeling, not formula...

[Bongitybongbong]

Sometimes I feel like my QI is below the minimum consented by law...
Maybe it's because this looks like maths... language is feeling, not formula...
Here here.

[Maxos]

Language can be seen as a function that applies on the space of senses and sends values into the space of thoughts.

This function is not linear and not constant with respect to time and space.
Moreover it's not invertible, since two different feelings can induce the same thought.

Poetry finds here its reason to exist.

I meant that quite applies on the phrase whose meaning you want to affect.

In 1 the phrase is: "am a private person", that is only one logical function, not "private person", which has no logical value in the sentence.

Whereas in 2 the phrase is: "a difficult book", the object, one logical function.

Anyway, I don't think there's something grammatically incorrect left in a language like English (And, in some way, Italian as well).
It's a problem of idiomatic choices.
It isn't correct to assert that the Italian for "every" is "tutto", in fact in English you choose (more frequently than in Italian) to say "ogni"(every) instead of saying "tutto"(all).

It is interesting to notice how this reflects a different attitude to life.
Anglo-saxon countries do not know Roman Right, they think of a law (correctly) as a product of time and situation, the notion of "precedent judgement", and so acts grammar.

In "Latin" countries, laws are, more or less, algorithms, which, from an input are supposed to give an output, tendentially unwilling to change; literary Italian was created to be unaffected by use and history and to remain unchanged through time and space.

[Taliesin]

I think I mentioned she cannot write...




In other words? :confused:
Sometimes I feel like my QI is below the minimum consented by law...
Maybe it's because this looks like maths... language is feeling, not formula...
Mathematics is a language.