'Bottom, thou art translated.'

[davem]

Originally Posted by Lalaith

As for Bilbo saying "Good heavens" in Russian, I personally wouldn't have thought about the religious significance until it was pointed out, it's not like saying "Good God" to my mind. Also I'm sure that in the Hobbit he does say "Bless me" which also has religious connotations does it not?

Now, that's down to my poor memory & posting while at work. The actual Russian (tr. Rakhmanova) has exclamations such as 'Dear God!', 'My God!', 'Merciful God!', 'god only knows', & 'otherwise god only knows' & has Bombur saying 'God forbid that I should criticise Thorin, may his beard grow limitlessly' (taken from the essay 'Tolkien Through Russian Eyes' by Mark T Hooker.) Note that this translation was made during the communist period, so the references to God were actually quite risky! Point being, a Russian reader would have understood the book to be to be a far more 'religious' work than an English reader of the original.

I think that translating the word as 'natives' makes the Greenlanders seem too PC. But this is another question - if you avoid using an 'offensive' term in order to spare the feelings of modern readers don't actually create a false image of the original work &, by extension, of the original settlers? Rakhmanova's translation of TH could be seen as a 'political' statement in a communist state, but how many Russian readers take TH as a 'Christian' story. Tolkien stated that he deliberately removed all references to religion in LotR, Rakhmanova has inserted religious references into TH. But has she made it a different work?

BTW, the translator of the Vinland Sagas is Keneva Kunz. The earlier Penguin translation by Magnus Magnusson (I think) retains the original Skraelings.