New Swedish translation, finally!

[Veon]

The publishing house which owns the rights for Lord of the Rings in Swedish has finally decided to make a new translation of the trilogy! smilies/biggrin.gif smilies/biggrin.gif

Haha, this is like Christmas Eve...

Hopefully they will publish the appendices with ROTK - for some unknown reason they were published separately in Sweden, which means that most Swedish readers have never even heard of them...

The new edition will be in stores in 2004.

Haha! Great!

Anders

[Jurion]

Read the English version, it's much better than any translation could ever be.

[Veon]

You're actually saying that no books should ever be translated? Strange point of view.

Anders

[Legolas]

No. He was saying "The original language the book was written in is alwas the best to read it in." If you can read it in the original language, it's recommended, basically.

[Veon]

Then what's the point? Shall we or shall we not translate books?

Do you know that in the present Swedish translation it's Merry killing the Witch-king?

Anders

[ February 13, 2003: Message edited by: Veon ]

[DaughterofVana]

I agree. If I had the ability I would not hesitate at all to read "Les Misarables" in French, because that is what Hugo intended. Tolkien, being an Englishman, intended for his book(s) to be read in English because it is his mother tongue, and no matter how well we can speak other languages (or make up our own!) that is always the one that we come back to and the one we feel the most comfortable with. Not that I am opposed to reading translations--please do not think that. All I am saying is that, when a book is translated from one language to another, certain discrepencies in the words/diction/flow of the story itself are bound to arise. Though the phrase "She was tall, lithe, and blond" could be translated into about every language, if one translation would say "She was tall, skinny, and yellow-haired" it wouldn't have the same effect on the reader, because certain words have certain double-meanings to certain people. My example is poor, but my point still stands: if you have the ability, read the book in the toungue it was written in, in order to fully grasp the author's intention. On the other hand, if you are not comfortable with English (or French, or German, or Italian, or whatever), by all means read the translation. A good book is a good book, no matter what language it is written in.

-'Vana

[Jurion]

No, I'm not opposed to translating books Veon. I think it's really a good thing because it opens the diverse literary world up to people who don't speak every language in the world.

But as Legolas said, No. He was saying "The original language the book was written in is alwas the best to read it in." If you can read it in the original language, it's recommended, basically.

I completely agree with this.

[Eärendil]

Veon, where did you get this information from?

I agree, Legolas. I prefer to read books in its original language. Things always get lost in the translation. Details, "feelings" and so on.
Though, when I first read LOTR I was 9, and I doubt I would have understood it in English by then. smilies/wink.gif (I read it in Swedish.)
Personally I am very happy to hear that a new Swedish translation of it is being published soon, because the one we have is CRAP, CRAP, CRAP!
And if that wasn´t enough the translator hated the books, thought they were very silly, childish (and more), and hated Tolkien and his family as well. Hm....

Now, what I fear is that I will discover that the new translation is almost as bad as the old one..

[ February 14, 2003: Message edited by: Eärendil ]

[Ailios]

Good news. Do you who the translator is?
I hope they will include decent maps as well.

[Veon]

There is some information (in Swedish) at the publisher's (P.A. Norstedt & sons) website, http://www.panorstedt.se/Pressrum_OutPut.asp?ArticleID=12032&ProductID=0.

The translators are Erik Andersson (Nick Hornby, James Ellroy, Jeff Noon, Zadie Smith, Flann O'Brien, Patricia Cornwell) and a poet, Lotta Olsson Anderberg, who most people know from her daily political poems in the newspaper Expressen.
A friend of mine says he read in some newspaper yesterday that Erik Andersson is a something of a Tolkien expert, although I cannot confirm that.

Let's hope their translation will be better than Åke Ohlmarks' interpretation...

And if the translation is bad, then we can just stick to the English version. After all it's quite simple to read - maybe simpler than Ohlmarks' complicated Swedish version. Anyone who masters Ohlmarks' version won't have any problems with Tolkien's version.

Anders

[Ithildin]

I really hate to hear the norwegian names and places in the books!!! it's just so....bad...really!
smilies/mad.gif


the english verson is the best smilies/smile.gif

[Veon]

I really hate to hear the norwegian names and places in the books!!! it's just so....bad...really!

Hmm?

[Eärendil]

Well, for example: Fylke (the Shire) means landscape (?) in Norweigan, or so I have heard.
Erik Andersson...hm...I have heard he is a good translator. Sounds positive. *thumbs up*

[Veon]

Well, for example: Fylke (the Shire) means landscape (?) in Norweigan, or so I have heard.
Erik Andersson...hm...I have heard he is a good translator. Sounds positive. *thumbs up*

Well, since Norwegian, Swedish and Danish share most of the vocabulary and the grammar (it's the spelling and pronounciation that differs) I don't really see the problem with "Fylke" for the Shire. It's not in the everyday vocabulary of Swedish, but it definitely means something.

My Oxford dictionary says the following about "shire": "(old use) a county (now used in the names of some counties in Britain, for example Hampshire, Yorkshire)" indicating that the word is not in use but still has a recognized meaning.

Therefore "Fylke" is a good translation for "the Shire" (although "the Shire" is definite while "Fylke" is indefinite, else it would have been "Fylket").
If Ohlmarks would have translated "the Shire" "Provinsen", "Landskapet", "Landet" or "Länet" it would probably have sounded just silly. "Häradet" or "Hundaret" would have worked, though.

Personally I hope the new translators keep most of Ohlmarks' names and concentrate on retranslating the text and correcting the flaws (and in this Tolkien's own examples can guide them: "Ford of Bruinen = Björnavad! Archet = Gamleby (a mere guess, I suppose, from ’archaic’?) Mountains of Lune (Ered Luin) = Månbergen; Gladden Fields (in spite of discr. in I. 62) = Ljusa Slätterna, & so on" from Letters (1981, p. 263f)).

Anders

[ February 19, 2003: Message edited by: Veon ]

[-Culavariel-]

i agree that the books are better read in their original language... but i mean, if books weren't translated at all there wouldn't be as many people who could read them... and yeah...
to veon:
äntligen att dom kommer ut... hehe... det är ju helt sjukt att dom inte gav ut eftertexten i samma bok... varför inte??? smilies/eek.gifinte för att eftertexten är sådär jättebra men...
I think you should try reading the books in english... cuz they ARE much better... and i mean one can always try... what i HATE is when they change the names of people and places... like hobbits = hober, the shire = fylke.... WHY, WHY, WHY???? smilies/eek.gif smilies/rolleyes.gif smilies/eek.gif

-culavariel-

[Guinevere]

Of course translations are necessary for all those whose knowledge of English isn't sufficient to read the original.

But it is my opinion, that especially in the case of LotR it's really worthwhile trying to read the original! Tolkien has such a rich, beautiful language (Not at all like everyday-English) and no translation, no matter how well done, can do justice to the original. (Though I don't know the Swedish Translation, my mothertongue being German.)

I think that you people in Scandinavia are all rather good in English, so this shouldn't really be a problem?? smilies/wink.gif

Please also see my thread "Tolkien Translations" on the same topic! Thank you!

[Veon]

(Though I don't know the Swedish Translation, my mothertongue being German.)

To put it short: Ohlmarks adds an adjective to every noun and an adverb to every adjective.

Examples:
"six meals a day" -> "sex vällagade måltider om dagen" i.e. "six well-cooked meals a day"

"now they avoid us with dismay and are becoming hard to find" -> "även nuförtiden söker de med alla tecken till skräck undfly alla möten med vår ras och har överhuvud blivit svårare att finna" i.e. "even nowadays they try with all signs of fear to flee all encounters with our race and have at all become harder to find".

"the sunrise" -> "morgonens flammande prakt" i.e. "the flaming splendour of the morning".

(I apoligise if my English is bad, I just try to do my best :-)

Nuff said. Examples from this translation analysis (http://hem.passagen.se/wizard_of_illusion/svenska/tolkien/svtranslate/translateanalys.html) made by a linguistics student at the University of Lund. In Swedish, though.

I have read the books in both English and Swedish, and nowadays, when people say that the books are hard to read in Swedish, I recommend them to try the English version, since the language of the books is so much simpler in English...

Anders

[Guinevere]

Well, that was interesting to read, Veon! (I even read a part of the Swedish Translation alalysis you gave as a link (I understand most of it, since I can also read and speak Norwegian)
In this case where the "old" translator preferred his own fancy to the actual words of Tolkien, a new translation will really be a good thing!

I just hope for you that they don't make the same mistake as with the new German translation (by W.Krege)!

In fact there existed quite a good translation in German (M.Carroux), but the Publishing house thought it necessary to "modernize" Tolkien. The new translation is disastrous!! Not only does it ruin the special atmosphere of Middle Earth when the hobbits speak a modern slang (eg Sam calling Frodo "Chef") but often the translator just tried to be "original" and different from the old translation. (eg "his voice was like music" = "seine Stimme klang wie ein Orchester" and other such nonsense.

The worst is, that in the bookshops you find now practically only the new translation, so any new readers of Tolkien are bound to buy this. My sons have also got it (as a gift) and I just hope that some day, when their knowledge of English has improved, they will come back to Tolkien and read the original!