Translation

[Annamariah]

But most of those cases are simply ‘suffixed’, if you will, -and highly regular, from what I understand- equivalents to all those damnable prepositions that IE languages love so much. And seeing that (aside from idioms/colloquialisms) the correct usage of prepositions is usually one of the most frustrating aspects of foreign language learning, Finnish might actually be a bit of a godsend in that particular respect after all...for anyone weird enough to actually want to study it.

Yes, our cases are suffixed, but not always so simply. Let's take the word "vesi", "water", for example. The suffix of the genitive case in Finnish is "-n", but the genitive of "vesi" is not "vesin", but "veden". "Vesin" is actually instructive case. Also the suffix of the partitive case is "-a" or "-ä", but "vesiä" is the plural partitive, while the single partitive is "vettä". Because of consonant gradation each word can have three stems. Some words are very easy to inflect, though

haha 15 cases I'd like to try! But are not some of them the same or something? I always think that cases are an artificial concept thought up by humans to make sense of all those weird changes in a certain position or function to a certain word. The ancient peoples were the first to use them (were the Celts not one of them too?), but they had no clue about them and just did so. Then in an urge to be able to learn Latin and Greek there was someone somewhere who decided about the so-called 'case', it's even got a very telling name in English...

I think it's not lying to say that 14 of the cases look differet and serve different purposes. Some of them aren't as frequently used as the others, though. They are also very necessary, as Finnish doesn't have prepositions like "in", "from", or "to", but uses cases (inessive, elative, and illative) instead of them.

But studying Russian, which uses both prepositions and cases drives me mad I can never remember which preposition demands which case...

[Madame X]

There is an additional problem as I said in Dutch because there is no way to translate 'thou/thee/thy/thine' and get the same feel. Correction, there is, but nobody wants it. Madame X will agree that one could use 'gij/u/uw/uwe', the older versions of 'jij/je (jou)/jouw (je)/jouw (je)' (you) even still declined (which has stopped since before the 50s) and still widely used in Flanders (with the exception of the declension 'uwe') but not so in the Netherlands where it is seen as something old only used in the bible anymore. The thing is, it is older, so it is false and one will never find a contemporary translation of Shakepeare with 'gij'. That should be the case though to get a more Skakespearian feel, but it is not.

Not to mention I don’t think there’s really much of a market for such translations here anymore anyway. English is pretty commonplace; if Shakespeare is taught at all it’ll almost certainly be in the original tongue, tout court. Although they might not grasp all the original archaisms, you might even run the risk of seriously offending someone by giving them some lame Dutch translation.

One can still use 'I daresay', 'I'll be sworn', 'I'll be bound', and things Hardy and even Brontë or Austen used in modern English. Try that with the Dutch of Couperus (1900s), Elschot (1910s through to 1930s), Gezelle (1830) and Emants (1870s-80s).

Hehe, although, fun to note, Dutch (like German) maintains some interesting constructions that, while perfectly normal to a modern Dutch ear, if translated literally into English end up sounding somewhat formal or even antiquated: waarheen = whither, hiernaartoe = hither, hiermee = herewith, daarna = thereafter, waarin = wherein, hierin = herein, etc.

[Madame X]

Is there really much difference between the feel of "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day..." and "Shall I compare you to a summer's day"? OK the former is more lyrical, but most of Shakespeare remains intact...

You can't expect *any* translator to produce the lyrical beauty of Shakespeare, but if you can translate most of the meaning, and most formal aspects, then surely that is a good thing. Surely this can be achieved in any language, given a talented translator?

I wouldn’t personally go so far as to say that translation is a completely worthless endeavour, heck, I read enough translated literature myself...but if you’re competent enough in both the source and target language of any translated text, no matter how capable, you can’t help but feel a sense of, I suppose, disappointment, upon comparison, that certain integral elements of the original simply couldn’t have been rendered truer/better.

Just take that nice couplet from sonnet #12 (wouldn’t dream of torturing you with the whole thing ):

And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence,
Save breed to brave him, when he takes thee hence.

One Dutch version gives us this:

De tand des tijds wordt door geen hand gekeerd –
Tenzij je een kind maakt en hem zo trotseert.

Literally: The cog of time is turned by no hand
Unless you have a child and so defy it (time).

Sure it rhymes and all, gets the general meaning across, and there’s even an instance of the old genitive case (des tijds; although it’s a common enough expression) but, in the end, it clearly isn’t even in the same ballpark. Win some lose some, I s'pose.

[kiki1982]

Is there really much difference between the feel of "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day..." and "Shall I compare you to a summer's day"? OK the former is more lyrical, but most of Shakespeare remains intact...

Yes, there is. 'Thee' sounds a lot better and gives a better rhythm, but other than that, if wrongly understood, it means actually that Shakespeare was addressing his beloved in a very polite way, as Benedick and Beatrice do at some point when they call each other 'you'. There have been lots of studies about 'thou' and 'you' in Shakespeare, so modernising it and claiming 'you' means the same as 'thou' is a little too easy...

Has your husband encountered the latest update of Yes Minister - The Thick Of It? If not - Christmas present sorted It's probably a better representation of the *actual* language spoken in political circles since the 1960s, certainly the expletive count is about the same as I have encountered in UK academic circles...

Apparently Thatcher found it so lifelike that she enjoyed it thoroughly and even called the Downing Street cat who one day walked in 'Humphry', after Sir Humphry Appleby. At any rate, it is no matter whether it i true or not, it is a matter of manner of speech, which has stayed largely the same with eloquent people since then. It cannot be said about Dutch in that way.

In summary: I usually prefer modernising translations. As I'm forced to read Shakespeare in the original I want the rest of my reading to be as straightforward as possible As one can never produce a perfect translation of Shakespeare, you might as well translate him into a language that everyone can understand. There were some abominable 'archaising' translations of Dante, Goethe, etc, in the Victorian period, that used a lot of thees and thous -- so using old language is not always good...

What is wrong with Shakespeare? I always wonder at people who claim they cannot understand and that it takes such a long time for them to comprehend. The times that I had a hard time to understand when I was still learning English and reading some Romeo and Juliet in class with of course liited vocabulary... Surely English people must have a better shot at it from the first time?

@Madame X:

oh my God, that was interesting! It was nothing like it!

[mal4mac]

You can usually see that the speaker is being polite from the context, which may be why thee has fallen into oblivion! ('scuse pun. I do not mean to insult thee.)

I agree that "thee" sounds a lot better...

There is nothing wrong with Shakespeare! I was certainly not trying to imply that. But, surely, you have to admit that Shakespeare is more difficult to read than, say, Fielding. I make that comparison because I'm reading Troilus & Cressida and Tom Jones at the moment--and I have no doubt that Shakespeare is more difficult--and I've read about ten of his plays this year so if one can get up to speed I should certainly be up to speed...

Shakespeare makes many allusions + uses obscure and compressed language. I can generally get at least one of the allusions, fairly quickly, and can look up the obscure words, and decompress the language, but this makes the reading process more difficult than breezing through Fielding.

Of course much of the language has great beauty and the compression is often marvellous. So the effort is definitely worth it! (Even for problem plays like Troilus and Cressida...)

Surely you would admit it takes *more time* to comprehend Shakespeare. It's not that most Brits couldn't acquire adequate understanding of their greatest poet's works, it is that many are too impatient to make the effort.

[kiki1982]

Wel, there is comprehension and comprehension. Allusion is not the same as vocabulary/language. Allusion moves on the cultural level where language moves on the knowledge level. I can perfectly (liguistically) comprehend something where I am totally oblivious to any allusion/cultural level altogether. Shakespeare is compressed because of his time limit and because of his verse-structure. He needed to hold onto both which compelled him to have weird constructions and say things in as little words as possible.

One can spend years researching even a 19th century book, although one has totally comprehended it word-wise. But for the understanding of the Ideas behind the vocabulary there are such people as critics to guide one.

[Red-Headed]

This may seem a very obvious thing to say, but remember that Shakespeare's plays were never meant to be read like a novel. The Elizabethan stage was not like the proscenium arch that we are familiar with today. There was no real concept of realism & the language employed by the actors was as much a device as any other prop.

[kiki1982]

That's why I prefer not to read plays. They do not speak as they do on a stage in a good production.

[mal4mac]

I like *both* to read and watch Shakespeare's plays. With reading you can slow down when you hit a philosophical passage, read it several times, think, and then move on... I doubt Shakespeare expected all but the cleverest of his audience (Ben Jonson?) to get everything in a play in an evening at the theatre, but he was clever enough to write so that the groundlings could shrug off the philosophical interludes and still mightily enjoy the action sequences.

If my theory is correct then this stance is interesting, it implies that the groundlings were willing to accept Shakespeare writing compressed philosophical arguments and also to accept that they wouldn't understand them - "they knew their place". Shakespeare doen't make it onto prime time BBC 1 because a modern audience will not accept not being able to understand "the complicated bits".

The BBC should have a series on each play that takes us through a slow reading so that we get the complicated bits (to a reasonable extent!) and preceed and succeed the slow reading by a full performance -- maybe didg out a classic (olivier...) for the first showing, and a new boy for the second (Tennant...) at the end of the week. What's BBC4 for if not for this?

[Red-Headed]

. I doubt Shakespeare expected all but the cleverest of his audience (Ben Jonson?) to get everything in a play in an evening at the theatre, but he was clever enough to write so that the groundlings could shrug off the philosophical interludes and still mightily enjoy the action sequences.

I've often wondered about this & it implies that there were also many who could appreciate much of Shakespeare's writing.

If my theory is correct then this stance is interesting, it implies that the groundlings were willing to accept Shakespeare writing compressed philosophical arguments and also to accept that they wouldn't understand them - "they knew their place". Shakespeare doen't make it onto prime time BBC 1 because a modern audience will not accept not being able to understand "the complicated bits".

Or maybe he just didn't underestimate his audience.

[kiki1982]

I think I agree with Red-Headed... If I understood that rightly.

The BBC is working towards too much political correctness and does not want to risk to offend the 'groundlings' by broadcasting something too difficult. This could be called really snobish, even worse than the class system that divided the country for hundreds of years, but there you go. Never mind that anything nice and really funny goes out of the window. Their recent abomination of Emma followed by a slightly easier and straightforward Garrow's Law is a good illustration.

Austen's complicated wit went out of the window because people might not have been able to understand what Austen was on about, and certainly not when Churchill was charming. They might have been offended at the class-system and not understood certain things (appearace v reality). Garrow's Law dwelled on the simple theme of enimosity between two people in the same profession (Mr Silverster v Mr Garrow), illegitimate love between two people (Lady Sarah a married woman and inexperienced Mr Garrow) and of course on the British fetish with fairness. It is no sneer to the British at all. Yet, that fairness could have been played out in a less black-and-white format. And then of course the political format that brings another facet to the fairness-theme. You begin with shocking the public by having the jury laugh while conferring, branding a screeming woman and then comes in Garrow, appalled and determined to do something about this. Our hero moves against his boss, the establishment and the public. He fails, but then, he succeeds and does not cease to succeed. Please, some nuance would have been great. Give these same archives to the French, and they do something more nuanced, fairer and thrilling from a political point of view with it. Tey would have made the viewer understand what the bad guy was about too. He had his reasons, no doubt, like Javert, but why? Too difficult for the poor British 'groundlings', I suppose?

[mal4mac]

I watched a couple of episodes of Garrow, and didn't like it. It was very slow paced, not very funny, and full of cliches. Did he have to have that duel? Isn't he supposed to be more sensible than the average wig wearer? It's not as bad as Paradox, though

What's wrong with British drama? The Americans are doing it so much better these days -- "The Wire", "West Wing" ... even "True Blood" (at least it's pacy...)