'Bottom, thou art translated.'

[davem]

Is there a difference in the German translation of Mister Frodo & Master Frodo, or is the same word used for both?

And for those in search of some light relief http://www.kombu.de/twain-3.htm

[Lalaith]

Tolkien did give us a hint about the Hobbits' usage - he once said/wrote (sorry, I don't have the exact quote or location at the moment) that the Hobbits only use the familiar pronoun. For that reason Pippin was considered royalty by the people of Gondor, because he addressed Denethor with the familiar pronoun! Only an equal would be allowed that privilege.

Yes, I remember that too...presumably Merry would have been the same with Theoden.
Can you remind me of the difference between Ihr and Sie?

I was wrong actually that there was no use of du/sie in the English original. I remember that there is a point in LotR where Eowyn addresses Aragorn as "thee". This is a more intimate form of address and it shifts the mood dramatically.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Lalaith

Yes, I remember that too...presumably Merry would have been the same with Theoden.
Can you remind me of the difference between Ihr and Sie?

I was wrong actually that there was no use of du/sie in the English original. I remember that there is a point in LotR where Eowyn addresses Aragorn as "thee". This is a more intimate form of address and it shifts the mood dramatically.

Eowyn uses thou also with Theoden, where her usage has a very ritualistic tone.

Originally Posted by The King of the Golden Hall

The king now rose, and at once Eowyn came forward bearing wine. Ferthu Theoden hal! she said. 'Receive now this cup and drink in happy hour. Health be with thee at they going and coming!'

If I recall correctly, it was the Quakers who took up 'thee' and 'thou' as a public insistence upon the equality of all people. Yet their usage came to be seen as archaic and religious. Interesting.

(Of course, now we know where the modern phrase "happy hour" comes from. All praise to Tolkien!)

[William Cloud Hicklin]

[quote}The medieval feeling of LotR means that there is a form that was once used and is now considered old-fashioned, if not obsolete - "Ihr"[/quote]

And therefore perfectly useful in attemting to get Tolkien's English across. It's certainly not beyond moderately literate Germans, since both Goethe and Wagner used it- not to mention of course Luther's Bible.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Originally Posted by davem

Is there a difference in the German translation of Mister Frodo & Master Frodo, or is the same word used for both?

And for those in search of some light relief http://www.kombu.de/twain-3.htm

Davem, I'm not familiar enough with the German translations to answer that question. Maybe Guinevere or Macalaure or others who have read the German version can give more information. As I read the original first, I could never bear to read more than a page or two of the translations!

Thanks for that wonderful Twain link - I'm familiar with his essay on the "awful German language" and have chuckled over it many times, but a number of these quotes are from other works and new to me. One in particular is quite appropriate for the Downs:

...it ought to be gently and reverently set aside among the dead languages, for only the dead have time to learn it.

Lalaith, normally "ihr" is an informal plural pronoun; in the old-fashioned usage, it can substitute for "Sie", which is the formal pronoun and can be either plural or singular. Good reference to the (obsolete) usage of "thee" by Éowyn/Tolkien! Nowadays, the fact that it is used only in a religious context clouds its original intimate meaning.

[Lalaith]

Yes, that's how I remember Ihr, as the plural of du, the other use I think we were taught about briefly, but I couldn't remember. When, exactly, would you substitute it for Sie?
Old Yorkshire people do still use thee and thy, in the old-style intimacy way. When I was a student, m neighbour, a pensioner, used to lean over the fence and say, "I do worry about thee, pet, so far away from thy parents.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Lalaith

Old Yorkshire people do still use thee and thy, in the old-style intimacy way. When I was a student, m neighbour, a pensioner, used to lean over the fence and say, "I do worry about thee, pet, so far away from thy parents.

Not s'much o' the 'owd'.... 'ah've bin nown tu use 'thee's' & 'tha;s' mesen....

[Lalwendë]

Yep, tykes of all ages still use thee and thou. In Sheffield though they use dee and dar - hence the unpleasant but quite funny nickname Deedars. This is interesting as something I was reading the other day about Scousers suggested that they do the same thing, and it's due to the Irish influence; there is little to no use of 'th' in Irish Gaelic, they use 'dh' instead, hence Dublin. You also hear the difference in the contrast between the Liverpudlian "maidering' and the Mancunian "maithering".

It's not just restricted to Yorkshire and Liverpool though, as plenty of Lancastrians still use words like "tha" as in "Hast tha had tha tea?" I reckon that in Tolkien's day you'd still have been able to hear plenty of West Midlands locals theeing and thying.

So I'm not so sure that 'thee' and 'thy' are 'formal' in English as spoken by British people at all, as they still have pretty much entrenched usages amongst Northerners and the working classes.

Originally Posted by Esty

Dear me, I can vividly remember the days when one did not dream of addressing an older person by her/his first name unless specifically invited to do so! And this tradition still holds here in Germany, at least partially, especially so in a formal setting such as business and education.

My father is still shocked that I told him we do not address superiors at work by their formal titles but simply use first names. Likewise, I often write to a variety of Ministers, Sirs and University Vice Chancellors and always address them by their first names - whether in a hard copy formal letter or by e-mail. That is the 'form' apparently, as we must count such people as colleagues.

However in schools, students right up to the age of 18/19 are expected to directly address their teachers as "Sir" or "Miss", never by name or horror of horrors, by first name! It was always a game for a class full of new pupils to try and guess what your first name might be.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

By contrast, apparently dating from the egalitarian Jefferson, faculty at the University of Virginia are always adressed as 'Mister" or 'Ms"- never Doctor or Professor.