Quote:
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Originally Posted by Legate
Quote:
Originally Posted by Galin
That's true, but hobbit is a Tolkien-invented word to represent a worn down form of holbytla, itself an Old English based construction intended to mean 'hole-builder, hole-dweller'... as kuduk was intended internally to represent a worn down form of a word used by the Rohirrim (thus 'Old English' holbytla) kûd-dûkan 'hole-dweller'
So kuduk has not simply been translated into English (as Quendi or Eldar with 'Elves'), but given an invented translation of Tolkien's own making, with the conceit of mirroring an internal relationship (kuduk to kûd-dûkan).
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Indeed! But now that is actually even "worse": now all translators should possibly start asking themselves whether they should not try to invent a word of their own which would resemble some ancient word for "hole-dweller" in their mothertongue... actually, thinking of that, at least within Indo-European languages, I wonder whether the "-bit" part at least could not be preserved (thinking of languages I know), in one way or another. But the beginning... I am just wildly guessing now, maybe something like Djerbyt or such would be appropriate in my mothertongue... but no, to be honest, I would prefer to keep the original to that. |
Here's another way of looking at it: to the casual reader, "hobbit" is a nonsense word, but one that just
sounds right: it fits into the structure of the language, and also into an existing pattern of English and Scottish fairytale-creature names (
hobgoblin, boggart, etc). Maybe a translator should be aiming for a similar effect of half-familiarity, rather than worrying about the etymology?