Tolkien Translations - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

Earendilyon · 10-20-2003, 12:24 PM

Guinevere, in a sense, it's only natural for a translator to translate the English and anglicised names to the language he's translating into: JRRT himself translated the original names from the Common Speech into English, because most of his readers weren't able to read the Common Speech, whereas they (ofcourse) could read English.
As for 'potato' and 'smoking a pipe': I haven't reached the latter, so I've not yet thought about that probleem. 'Potato' I've translated from the word for it in Dutch (and also French; German too?), which litterally means 'apple of the earth', and therefore: 'mala terrana'.

10-20-2003, 12:24 PM	#25
Earendilyon Wight Join Date: May 2001 Posts: 166	Guinevere, in a sense, it's only natural for a translator to translate the English and anglicised names to the language he's translating into: JRRT himself translated the original names from the Common Speech into English, because most of his readers weren't able to read the Common Speech, whereas they (ofcourse) could read English. As for 'potato' and 'smoking a pipe': I haven't reached the latter, so I've not yet thought about that probleem. 'Potato' I've translated from the word for it in Dutch (and also French; German too?), which litterally means 'apple of the earth', and therefore: 'mala terrana'. __________________ "For I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and long words Bother me." Dominus Anulorum TolkienGateway - large Tolkien encyclopedia.