'Bottom, thou art translated.'

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Well, the new German translation (by Krege) has often been cited for such things as Sam calling Frodo "Boss" - which might be what could be used nowadays, but LotR isn't nowadays! There are many other examples of vocabulary that lowers the story to a vernacular level instead of bringing out the "high and lofty" character of the book. However, I don't own the modern translation, so I can't give specific examples now. Perhaps other German language readers can add more.

The purpose of these changes was not for political correctness, but for modernizing the text to attract a young generation. Whether it has really succeeded in achieving that aim I can't say.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Estelyn Telcontar

Well, the new German translation (by Krege) has often been cited for such things as Sam calling Frodo "Boss" - which might be what could be used nowadays, but LotR isn't nowadays! There are many other examples of vocabulary that lowers the story to a vernacular level instead of bringing out the "high and lofty" character of the book. However, I don't own the modern translation, so I can't give specific examples now. Perhaps other German language readers can add more.

That's interesting, because in a way the change from 'Master' to 'Boss' doesn't so much make the story 'more accessible' to a younger readership as change the relationship between the two into one of employer-employee.

Now, not to push this too far, but I know that a lot of accusations of racism aimed at LotR are based on the descriptions of the enemy as 'dark', 'swarthy', & suchlike, & it would be easy for a translator to 'alter' such descriptions to avoid such accusations.

However, what interests me is the extent to which such changes alter the reader's understanding. To go back the the 'Skraelings' example, to refer to the inhabitants of Vinland as 'barbarians' is very different to referring to them as 'natives'. 'Barbarians' is perjorative & 'natives' is neutral. In the same way if Sam calls Frodo 'boss' he is acknowledging that he is his employer, but if he calls him Master he is implying so much more than that, because 'Master' can also imply 'teacher' or 'guide' (& let's not ignore the implication of 'better' which is implied - something I believe Tolkien was examining, or even 'playing with'). A reader of the original will pick up on that implication whereas a reader of the German probably won't. Certainly 'boss' is not a 'neutral' translation of Master.....

[Bêthberry]

I always enjoy the opening line in your posts, davem. Your "So" and "So anyway" reminds me muchly of "hwæt" although I suppose you can ascribe that remembrance to my reading of Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf.

I probably share many of the regrets and hesitations over translations and "modernisations" that Esty and davem have. However, I would like to step back just a sec to consider an assumption in the first post here. Is 'political correctness' the only motivator in using 'native' for 'Skræling'?

A starting point is to consider if skræling exists in any English dictionaries. It does not appear in the OED and it is not in the dictionary.com as an English word. It does appear in encyclopedias, but there it appears as Old Norse. So the translator could be legitimately and honestly looking for a specific English word, believing that skræling is not English and would not be understood by the English reader. Another point to consider is that, while skræling might mean barbarian in modern Icelandic, that is not necessarily the meaning it had in the ancient texts.

The orgin of the work is not clearly known, as this Reference.com entry suggests. It could in fact have been an attempt to reproduce the name of the North American tribe. And certainly 'sickly' could well describe the effect of disease which the Europeans brought to Vinland.

Originally Posted by Reference.com

As recounted in the Greenlander (Grœnlendinga) saga, the word skraeling may have been the name of one of the North American tribes encountered during initial contact. A Norseman saved two Skraeling boys from the sea. As was their custom, the Skraeling boys became the Norseman's life-long servants. During this service the Skraeling boys indicated that the word "skraeling" was how their peoples' name was pronounced in Norse.

A further point to consider is that the original meaning of 'barbarian' was far, far less derogatory than the word became in English usage. In classical Greek and Latin, its first meaning (as I understand, not being a scholar of ancient languages) was simply someone who was not a Hellenic or, latterly, Roman speaker. It was linguistic. It is probably impossible to "go back" to this more neutral meaning of 'barbarian', but it is worthwhile considering if "native" is not in fact closer to this original idea of separating native from non-native speaker. It's a jump I admit, as logically 'non-native' would be closer, but my point is really to ask if, in the original sagas, the word was necessarily as pejorative as our later usages make it.

If that is the case, then the translator has tried to recapture an historically accurate rendition of the relationship between the Vikings, Greenlanders, and the North American tribes. It was, after all, the later Europeans who slaughtered the Boetiuk Indians by putting a bounty on their heads, not the Vikings. It was the later Europeans (aka English) who put the highly derogatory connotations on barbarian. But did the Vikings share this attitude towards others? Christian Europe created the image of the Vikings as brutal, barbarous tribes who went around killing and slaughtering, but modern historical and anthropological research suggests that is not an accurate reflection of the Vikings' attitude towards other tribes.

These are, I think, considerations far more significant than the handy old stand-by of "political correctness." Language changes over time and there is an honest attempt by translators to capture an original meaning which may be lost by the "baggage" which words pick up after the text was originally created.

Of 'boss' and 'master' the issue is quite different, between very different forms of social and economic organisation. Yet can we really say that "master" is an example of the 'high and lofty' tone? Not everything medieval was high and lofty, particularly social relationships. I'm not saying that I prefer 'boss' to 'master', just that power and authority pertains also to medieval terminology.

[davem]

I take your point re Skraelings - though it has been kept in all translations I've read so far. And that perhaps is also PC - because apparently the closest literal translation is 'wretches'.

The early Norwegian
settlers in Greenland sought to control their natural environment in the same way that they did
in their native Norway. By not recognizing the fundamental differences between their former
environment and their new one their society eventually collapsed. Had the Norse
Greenlanders interacted with the indigenous people rather than seeing them to be mere
“skraelings” (“wretches”), they might have learned how to cope and survive in Greenland’s
extreme environment. Similarly, in Vineland, had the Norse Greenlanders interacted with the
Labrador and Newfoundland Beothuks on arrival rather than killing them on sight, they may
well have colonized North America (http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache...ient=firefox-a)

That said apparently the Icelanders used the name to refer to the inhabitants of Greenland too.

[Lalwendë]

Of course there are many meanings to "Master" as used for Frodo, as davem gets at. There's Master in the sense of the older, wiser person, one who might teach or lead a pupil. And Master in the sense of a formal title for a young man. Master in the sense of military leader or commander. I'm not quite sure why a German translation would alter Master to the more limiting word "Boss" as isn't Meister much the same in German as in English? Possessed of multiple meanings?

And Skraelings are found in His Dark Materials. Interesting as one of the accusations sometimes levelled at Pullman is that he's a modern, PC, trendy type. But he's not afraid to use that word.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by davem

I take your point re Skraelings - though it has been kept in all translations I've read so far. And that perhaps is also PC - because apparently the closest literal translation is 'wretches'.

That said apparently the Icelanders used the name to refer to the inhabitants of Greenland too.

I don't know which I should do first--applaud your ingenuity in finding such an article or laugh hysterically at an earnest engineer doing anthropological or archeological lectures! That said, the esteemed Professor Ircha does not footnote his source for the interpretation of 'wretches' and that I would like to see simply because the linguistic sources say the word's etymology is unclear. It's a tangled web when a pragmatic researcher takes on cultural studies and treats hypotheses like literal fact. His source for those claims about the Norse (Diamond's book Collapse) has been contested and his off hand remark about relations with the Inuit does not really reflect the general consensus about the relationship of the two cultures.

To go back to the switch from Skræling to native, I can't help but wonder if it reflects a change in assumption about the readership of the sagas--the great loss of cultural knowledge which makes familarity with a Norse word no longer a given, just as familiarity with the social organisation reflected in 'master' can no longer be assumed either. Kids these days--all they know is pop culture.

Pullman uses Skræling in a fantasy world, though, doesn't he? I mean, are readers to take either of his Oxfords as the actual historical one we live in or can visit? So he can take a word and tilt it a bit without being literally or pedantically referring to the actual historical usage of the word. He's calling up something different than a translator of an historical text would be doing.

[Lalaith]

Love this thread title - I had no idea what to expect when I clicked to open it!

The term Skraelingi would still understood by modern Icelanders, and even used, but only as a rather self-consciously archaic and/or ironic term of abuse.

I think in some ways "native" does convey the same sense, because no decent modern English speaker would refer to "natives" except in such a deliberately archaic way, you know...."the heat, the flies, the beat of the tom-toms, the natives were restless that night..."

I do however also agree that "Skraelingr" has a much better onomatopoeic sense than "native". More interesting etymological facts - it is also related to the common verb, skraela, to peel (ie [de-]skin) which is used in Danish as well as Icelandic. And the present-day Greenland Inuits refer to themselves as Kalaalleq, which is believed to be derived from the word Skraeling, rather than their own original word for themselves.

And to keep the Tolkien link....albeit off topic....the dealings of the Snowmen of Forochel with Averdui - could they have been inspired by the trade between the Inuits and Norsemen of the sagas, I wonder....

[davem]

What interested me was not so much whether the term was insultingly used originally - who knows when we're dealing with a literary work set down around the time of Chaucer & recounting events from centuries before that - but whether the current translator was motivated by a belief that Skraelings is 'offensive' & if he used 'natives' because that was felt to be more 'neutral'. We have something similar happening at Christmas over here, where the word 'Christmas' itself is not used & Christmas trees are not put up 'in case it offends non-Christians'.

The real question related to changes made in translations of Tolkien's works. The change from Master to boss is very significant in that it restricts the range of meaning & what is being said about the Frodo-Sam relationship. The introduction of overtly 'religious' expletives on Bilbo's part in Russian translations of TH is also interesting, in that someone who only reads the works in translation will form some very different opinions about the works than a reader of the original.

It also begs the question of how sensitive a translator should be to the feelings of his/her readers & how faithful they should be to the original?

'Natives' doesn't convey 'wretch' or 'barbarian' in the same way that Skraelings did to the original hearers/readers of the Sagas & it can be taken as a 'neutral' term in a way that Skraelings couldn't. If modern Icelanders would understand Skraeling as an (archaic) term of abuse then is their understanding of the term when reading the original correct or incorrect - either way a modern Icelander reading about Skraelings in Vinland is not going to have the same response as a modern English or American reading about 'natives' are they?

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Lalaith

I think in some ways "native" does convey the same sense, because no decent modern English speaker would refer to "natives" except in such a deliberately archaic way, you know...."the heat, the flies, the beat of the tom-toms, the natives were restless that night..."

Good call, except sometimes these days I hear that phrase used by parents/adults about adolescents out on a Saturday night.