Ordinary Day

Ich wuensche Dir viel Erfolg mit Deiner Uebersetzung! Das klingt wie Spass! Wenn Du vielleicht irgendwelche Hilfe brauchst, sag's mir! Vielleicht kann ich Dir helfen. :)

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avram

Hm. I notice that German for “hobbit” is “Hobbit”. I wonder if it works. Tolkien coined the word out of the Old (or maybe Middle) English for “hole-digger”, and the root words might go back into German.

I did an English-to-German-to-English translation through Babelfish, just to see what would come out, ’cause I’m easily entertained:

In a drilling in the soil a main header bit lived there. A bad, dirty, wet drilling, filled with the ends of the continuous screws and oozy the smell the dry, bare, sandigen drilling with nothing in it, on do not in addition-sit still nevertheless or to eat: it was a main header bit drilling and this central comfort.

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Du sollst ein Buch auf Deutsch kaufen, und auch mit mir Deutsch sprechen! Oder

shaylith, oder

apel. :)

Ja, Sprachen sind sehr spaß!

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Danke schöen! Ich muß Deutsch sprechen, zu Deutsch lernen. Ich wünsche Hilfe!

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HEE! Babelfish, gotta love it. :) And yeah, I noticed right off that "Hobbit" was used in the German; I suspect the translator had no earthly idea what to do with that, so just left it be. It is one of the central concepts, so!

I made it about halfway through Chapter 1 just trying to read the words and see what I understood--another interesting thing I noticed was that they've changed Bilbo's last name in the translation. He's not "Bilbo Baggins", he's "Bilbo Beutlin".

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That's so cute! Probably comes from Beutel, which is a bag, thus: Beutlin. :)

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Ich muß Deutsch sprechen, zu Deutsch lernen.

Ich muss Deutsch sprechen, Deutsch /zu/ lernen. :)

Not to nitpick. :) Just to help. :)

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Not a problem! Thanks for clarifying!

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Ohhhh! So that'd sort of be 'little bag'?

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Hmm. It /could/ be. I know 'chen' and 'lein' are German suffixes meaning small or little. It could be a shift from Beutlein to Beutlin. :) Never know!

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janne.livejournal.com

Or possibly a contraction of beutel in (bag in)?

I figured out how to write the double S in html once, but the knowledge didn't stick. Then again, I seem to have read somewhere that modern german is tending towards less use of the special characters. Fact or fiction, I wonder.

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There's been a lot of reformation in the German language lately, what they called the Rechtschreibung. They are spelling out the double s more now, but it depends on the word and the rules. I, unfortunately, can't remember them. :)

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Having been pointed here by

fleetfootmike, I just have to say: Well done you!

I'm a UK resident transplanted from Germany where I was born & grew up - and it's fun to read this and get your comparison. Given the description of a hobbit-hole, "Hoehle" (cave) is closer than what one would imagine from "Loch" (hole). The latter would be more like a deep depression in the ground or a pothole, so I think the translator's use of both words supports the feel of the original. The main differences I see is the translators substitution of Kies (gravel) for Sand/sandig (sandy) and his changing of simple "eat" (essen) to "breakfast" (fruehstueck) and furthermore add comfortable/cozy (gemuetlich).
The differences in the previous sentence are mostly due to the different languages allowing different use of words, phrases & structure - although he does define his ends of worms slightly more than Tolkien did.

As for the reduced use of special characters - there was a "Rechtschreib-Reform" a several years back that changed some of the grammer & spelling rules to, ostensibly, "make things easier". I'm sticking to tradition (but typing on a keyboard/comp that doesn't do the special characters, so using the accepted substitutions) and am ignoring this reform - hey, I learned the stuff in school and I was never hugely keen, so if I can, and everybody in my Generation could, I don't see why today's youngsters couldn't. Ah well, too late for that.

Anyway - I'll happily answer questions as I can, will probably keep reading your LJ for awhile - if I miss something you can always have Fleetfootmike point me here again ;)

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Yes, it does indeed. :)

-lin is an archaic form of what's now -lein, possibly also in use regionally.
To my German ear, "Beutlin" very well translates the feel of the name "Baggins", it gives the same feel. Given that most hobbit family names have a meaning, and given "bag-end" (Beutels-end), I again think it makes sense and approve. :)

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How to make the characters I know about:

ß -> ß
&auml -> ä
&ouml -> ö
ü -> ü

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Greetings, and glad to make your acquaintance! :)

Thank you very much for your insights on my little translation, they're much appreciated! And I see I totally missed gemütlich, too, in my translated English. Whoops! Maybe I should have said 'or have a cozy breakfast'? Or 'cozily have breakfast'? I'm not sure whether gemütlich should be functioning as an adverb or an adjective here. :)

I had in fact heard about the language reform in passing; I used to work in software localization, so this was an issue that had come across my radar. But I didn't get a chance for it to make an impact on my actual job before I was laid off, so I am unversed with the actual tenets of the reforms in question.

And you're most welcome to keep an eye on my journal. If an actual native German speaker's going to be looking over my shoulder, this will perhaps inspire me to regularly post about my progress. :D

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...and it might inspire me with some language insights as well. I certainly enjoyed your little discourse about the beginning of Der kleine Hobbit. (Interestingly... the English is just "The Hobbit", not "The little Hobbit"...)

*hugs*, if you're a huggable :)

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Language insights would be most welcome! And indeed, I noticed the title differences between English and German, and was wondering about the addition of 'little' into the title. :)

I am indeed huggable! *hugs back*

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cafiorello.livejournal.com

Cool idea! I bought Harry Potter a l'ecole des sorciers for about the same reason, but then Derek started studying German and I've been helping him study and my French and sehr klein Deutsch are getting all mixed up in my head....

viel Glueck!
Cathy

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It does very much make sense! I didn't know -lin was an old form of -lein--or at least, if I did, that's one of the pieces of data that slipped out of my brain. :)

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Or if what

bardling has to say on the matter is any indication, a deliberate use of an archaic suffix... which would kind of work well with the whole 'faerie tale' feel of The Hobbit. :)

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I never learned the rules! I heard in passing that the language reforms were going to happen while I was still employed as a localization engineer at Attachmate--but then they went and laid me off. ;P

NOT THAT I'M NOT STILL BITTER ABOUT THAT OR ANYTHING.

:)

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French and German are definitely NOT languages that play well together in the same brain--as I learned when I tried to take a year of French the first year of college, following 2 1/2 years of high school German!

Though I'd like to brush up on my French at some point as well. I should find a novel in French that I'd like to read, too. :) Though I remember way more German than I do French; I should probably take a refresher course first.

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You'd have been unlikely to have learned that in school. I'm referring back to the Middle Ages here. ;)

As in:
Du bist min, ich bin din:
Des solt du gewis sin.
Du bist beslozzen
In minem herzen:
Verlorn ist daz sluzzelin:
Du muost och immer darinne sin.

sluzzelin - Schluesselein, iminutive for Schluessel.

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