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2003-05-16 13:33 (UTC+1)
["Mums" means "Yum" in Swedish, roughly.]
Like sandwiches? Like cake? You'll love
sandwich cake!
The most tempting Swedish delicacy since Jansens frestelse, it
brilliantly combines the savoury bready goodness of sandwich with the,
um, shape of cake. (I am actually just a bit tempted to one of these
as a becandled birthday cake, given that I have not the tooth of
sweetness. The deluxe one really is "essence of Sweden" - salmon,
whipped cream, shrimps and mayonaise. How classy is that?)
[Theme supplied by the KTH tag team of Birgitte and Simon Linntott. Thanks, persons!]
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2003-05-16 09:25 (UTC+1)
Eye candy: Choose between a really spectactularly boggling collection
of optical illusions (via Plurp) or a collection of photos of
"Chicago" (from the s lot). I recommend cheating and choosing
both - I won't tell.
A dictionary
of modern Latin oh what fun:
Father Reginald Foster, who translates Pope John Paul II's documents
from Latin to English, said the dictionary is fun with an important
purpose.
"Maybe these things will help increase interest in the language
because there are a million things that did not exist then [in Roman
times]," he said.
(If it had been those wacky Finnish persons which do a
world-service-type news broadcast in Latin I would have approved. Of
a publicity stunt by the Catholic church my approval is firmly
withheld. What's Latin for "morning-after pill," Father Foster, huh?)
And, in a novel twist, a prinsess/politics double-feature (I suspect
Father Reginald Foster, or someone just like him, of a plot to "increase
interest in" Swedish politics which I would normally shun and quite
right too.)
Euromotst�ndarna rasar mot att kronprinsessan Victoria anv�nds som
dragpl�ster f�r kampanjen Ja till EMU.
[Euro opponent are furious that kronprinsess Victoria is being used as
as a postergirl for the Yes campain for joining the EMU.]
She judged the kiddies sn�-castle competition at a Ja meeting or
something, and knickers of the No side have become entwisted. Be
reassured, one and all, that:
Enligt hovets informationschef Elisabeth Tarras-Wahlberg finns det
ingen koppling mellan EMU-generalens framtr�dande och att Victoria
fanns p� plats. Tarras-Wahlberg garanterar att kronprinsessan �ven
kommer att f� ta del av nej-sidans synpunkter.
According to the chief court spokesperson Elisabeth Tarras-Wahlberg,
there is no connection between the EMU-general's appearance and
Victoria's presence. Tarras-Wahlberg guarantees that the kronprinsess
is also going to take part in the No-campaign's meeting.
(That's a pretty sketchy translation, sorry.) The point is clear,
though, the lovely kronprinsess isn't publically taking sides, and if
it means more meeja coverage of her, that's just fine with me.
Desbladet itself vigourously endorses the Ja campaign, for what it's
worth.
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2003-05-15 14:14 (UTC+1)
I've been meaning to say that for a while, sorry. What UNESCO's
Clearing House for literary translation actually
says is:
In today's globalized world, foreign literature has experienced a
boost unprecedented in the history of culture and editorial industry.
But despite the quantity and quality of texts translated and published
yearly throughout the world, the variety and representativeness of
those in the global market cannot be taken for granted, because of its
intrinsic asymmetry. Although the publishing market is much more
varied and wideranging than in the past, it still remains necessary to
promote cultural diversity and pluralism in it. UNESCO, one of whose
strategic and fundamental aims is the promotion of cultural diversity,
can and must be active in this field.
(I wonder if they also
disseminate timely deliverables.) I'm
more varied and wide-ranging than in the past, too - any chance of a
grant?
[via Enigmatic
Mermaid]
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2003-05-15 10:38 (UTC+1)
Prinsessor! K�rlek ("Romance")! Intrigue! What better way could
there be to learn a language? Today prinsessan Madeleine stunned
seasoned court-watchers by
going
for a walk:
I tisdags tog prinsessan Madeleine en romantisk promenad med
pojkv�nnen Jonas Bergstr�m i Stockholm city. Som Aftonbladet avsl�jade
redan f�rra �ret �r den 24-�rige juridikstudenten hennes nya k�rlek.
D� var romansen relativt ny, och paret gjorde allt f�r att inte v�cka
n�gon uppm�rksamhet.
[On Tuesday prinsessan Madeleine took a romantic walk in Stockholm
city with her boyfriend Jonas Bergstr�m. As Aftonbladet revealed last
year the 24 year old law student is her new love.
Then the romance was relatively new, and the pair went to great lengths
not to attract attention.]
Point de Vue has already established that Jonas is the
acceptable face of boyfriendhood - good student, good family, good
teeth - and that Madde's daddy (who, as I'm sure you know, is the
King) approves of him and them and that. (They also hinted that
Vickan is single again, and I certainly haven't seen any trace of her
erstwhile bloke in the papers. Has anyone heard any scurrilous
rumours? I ask of course purely in the spirit of linguistic
self-improvement.)
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2003-05-14 13:13
Via Simon Linntott (guestbook
communication, 2003) comes
this link
(in la-de-dah DN, Sweden's most self-important daily newspaper) about how Scandewegian writers
are taking the normally staid world of English book-vendoring quite
literally by storm. (Except for the "literally" part, I just made
that up to make it sound exciting, sorry.)
P� Foyles - en stor bokhandel vid Charing Cross - ligger p� paradplats
Astrid Lindgren, Agneta Pleijel, Hjalmar S�derberg och Jan Guillou i
en enda r�ra. Meat the Nordic Writers, lyder en uppfodrande
skylt. M�tet �r t�nkt att ske bokledes och f�r s�kerhets skulle har
man f�rsett varje bok med en handskriven biografi �ver f�rfattaren.
[At Folye's - a large bookshop near Charing Cross - a single display
shows Astrid Lindgren, Agneta Pleijel, Hjalmar S�derberg och Jan
Guillou. Meat the Nordic Writers, reads a raised sign [I bet it
bloody doesn't - des]. The arrangement is carefully thought out and
as a safeguard they've equipped each book with a hand-written biography
of the author.]
Foyles "a large bookshop", indeed - how are the mighty fallen! The
idea that Foyles is like a bookshop, only larger, or that familiarity
with any other bookshop could possibly prepare you for the experience
of Foyles would have been laughable, even scandalous, a mere decade
ago. It's probably more-or-less accurate now, though. It is to sigh.
Still, anyone who
wants to claim that translated literature
just doesn't shift the units in blinkered old Blighty is might be
surprised to see how much stuff the Swedish-English Literary
Translators Association is up to, as showcased in its house journal
(the Swedish Book Review) edited by Sarah Death from her headquarters
in Kent. The article is mostly an interview with her ("Why Swedish?"
"I was tired of French," I kid you not) and she cites the success of
Miss Smilla's Feeling For Sn� (yes of course I know it was
originally Danish and that would be "sne" but it's not as funny that
way) as the beginning of the trend.
So, well, hoorah for Swedish to English translators, whose impact on
my life - negligible, to date - I am working tirelessly to eliminate
altogether, and you can't get a more ringing endorsement than that,
can you?
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2003-05-14 09:06 (UTC+1)
Le Point has an article on Tuvan
shamans (and it may be time limited, so I'd get on with it if I
were you).
Guess what happened when history, in the shape of the USSR, collided
with indigenous shamanic traditions? If you guessed "Bad things," well done,
but le professeur Kenin-Lopsan, historien et chaman (for it is indeed
he!) preserved the traditions under the cover of making an academic
study of them, and plenty of others kept the faith:
Car, r�v�le-t-il, parmi ceux qui accept�rent de retourner � la vie
civile, beaucoup continuaient en secret � pratiquer les rituels et les
soins, tout simplement parce qu'il leur �tait impossible de refuser de
soigner, de transmettre les derni�res volont�s du parent mort.
[Because, he reveals, among those who agreed to return to civil life,
many continued to practice rituals and healing, simply because it was
impossible to refuse to heal, to transmit the last wishes of dead
relatives.]
These being among the duties of the Tuvan shaman, you see. And now,
with the Soviet state dismantled, there are new challenges associated
with urbanisation (well, villagisation, but if your immediate
ancestors were nomads that's still a pretty big deal) and the stampede
of New-Ageiste tossers in search of authentically picturesque
authenticity.
(New-Ageiste tossers! Visit the clinique von Bladet for some
ancient and traditional pagan Viking axe-healing ceremonies that
will cost you an arm and a leg - but they're worth it!
Let the restful wood-smoke aromas of our unique Burning House ritual lull
you into blissful unconsciousness before the flames start to crackle
around your agonising, bleeding stumps!)
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2003-05-13 14:11
My global network of informants, with a little help from a dead-tree
translators' trade journal, [UPDATE: and some proofreading from Maus, thanks] has supplied me with the text of
the Sphinx's riddle section of Harry Potter IV in 13 different
languages, and to celebrate having finished the French translation
(it's over 700 pages and it felt like it, frankly) I'm blogging
fragments of a subset. The life, she eez finite, yes? (And the
copyright holders fierce, yes indeed also.)
The English version sets the framework:
First think of the person who lives in disguise,
Who deals in secrets and tells naught but lies.
"Spy", of course, and the answer is a spider (in fact a giant
spider, as some translations exploit).
French:
"D'abord, pense au premier de ce qu'il faut apprendre
Lorsque l'on ne sait rien � l'�ge le plus tendre."
"A", the first letter of the alphabet, is for "Araign�e".
Swedish:
"T�nk f�rst p� n�n som ibland bergen bor
Och klampar fram, hemskt och f�rf�rligt stor"
(En j�ttespindel)
Norwegish:
"F�rst: Det blotteste dun og den bitreste galle
og nesten de dyreste l�fte av alle"
(En edderkopp). Danishness not included, sorry, nor Icelandic.
Dutch:
Denk aan iemand die van vermommingen leeft
Die altijd moet liegen en geheimen doorgeeft
which gives "spion", from which we will make "een spin", of course.
Czech, with postfix hac^eks, sorry:
"Nejdr^�v si vzpomen^ kdo nejv�c se honos�
a i kdyz^ pozbyl c^�rku, se jako duha skv�."
(Pavouka, yes, well done.)
In practice, I could read the English, French and Swedish ones
straight off, but none of the others, not even naughty Norwegish.
(This senseless babbling of yours has got to stop, Earthlings.)
2003-05-13 09:51 (UTC+1)
I forget where I found it
now. Maths, physics, chemistry and biology modules, all in glorious
French flavour, yum yum. The maths is certainly as French as you
could hope for, and I don't just mean the language.
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2003-05-12 17:40 (UTC+1)
Lyapunov exponents, isn't it? Also normal forms, LaTeX
figure-insertion macros (grrr) and a few bits and bobs. All in a
day's work.
But I just have time for a remark:
Dans le quotidien de son exp�rience, l'homme ne vit la pluralit�
linguistique ni comme un probl�me m�taphysique, ni comme un scandale
existentiel, mais, plus banalement, comme une entrave � la libre
communication et au d�veloppement des �changes.
[In everyday experience linguistic diversity isn't experienced either
as a metaphysical problem nor as an existential scandal, but, more
mundanely, as a hindrance to free communication and the development of
exchanges.]
O. Soutet, Linguistique
Monsieur Soutet has published work on languages as diverse as Old
French, medieval French, Renaissance French and contemporary French,
and it certainly shows.
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2003-05-12 10:40 (UTC+1)
Ci sono vari locali in Inghilterra che corrispondo all'incira alla
tavola calda; i pi� communi si chiamano "snack bars" sn�k
ba(r)s o "wimpies" uim'pis. In questi si possono avere al
banco molto variet� di "sandwiches" s�n'uicis (panini imbottiti
o tramezzini con prosciutto, uova, insalata con salmone, pollo, ecc.)
"grills" grils (tramezzi tostati), biscotti, pasticcini,
gelati, bibite calde e fredde escluse quelle alcoliche, che si trovano
invece nelle "public houses" pa'blik hau'sis (detta
communamente "pubs" pabs) e neghli alberghi.
[L'inglese com si parle, Lysle.]
Since this is general information it is not translated, but it doesn't
need to be (and I couldn't if it did, so there's no point whining at
me). I will remark only that Italian "c" and "g" are softened to the
sounds of "church" and "judge" respectively when followed by "i" or
"e", unless an "h" (which isn't sounded) is placed in-between to
protect them.
Also, in the section of the phrasebook pertaining to zoological
gardens, we find:
Guarda com'� alta la giraffa! E che aria impassibile ha il cammello!
Look how tall the giraffe is! And how impassive the camel looks!
You have the documents, then, Number 5?
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