‘The Westron Turned into Modern English: The Translator and Tolkien’s Web of Languages’ (original) (raw)

Abstract

Published in Thomas Honegger (ed.). 2004. Translating Tolkien. Cormarë Series 6. Zurich and Berne: Walking Tree Publishers, 1-20. Abstract: Tolkien’s presentation of The Lord of the Rings as a translation out of the original Westron into modern English inspired him to go one step further and reproduce the relationship between the various languages of Middle-earth by means of linguistic transposition (e.g. Rohirric = Old English, Language of Dale = Old Norse). The resulting ‘web of languages’ presents itself as a highly complex and not always fully coherent structure and poses an additi¬onal challenge to every translator

Loading...

Loading Preview

Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.

References (23)

  1. ALLAN, Jim, 1978, An Introduction to Elvish, (reprinted 1995), Bran's Head Books. BIGGER, Andreas, 1999, 'Love Song of the Dark Lord: Some Musings on the Reception of Tolkien in an Indian Context', in HONEGGER, Thomas (ed.), 1999, Root and Branch - Approaches towards Understanding Tolkien, Zurich and Berne: Walking Tree Publishers, pp. 165-179.
  2. BRAUN, Fredericke, 1988, Terms of Address: Problems of Patterns and Usage in Various Languages and Cultures, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  3. BROWN, Roger and Albert GILMAN, 1960, 'The Pronouns of Power and Solidarity', in SEBEOK, Thomas A. (ed.), 1960. Style in Language, New York and London: The Tech- nology Press of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, pp. 253- 276. BURNLEY, David, 2003, 'The T/V pronouns in Later Middle English Literature', in TAAVITSAINEN, Irma and Andreas H. JUCKER (eds.), Diachronic Perspectives on Ad- dress Term Systems, (Pragmatics & Beyond), Amsterdam: Benjamins, pp. 27-45.
  4. CARPENTER, Humphrey (ed., with the assistance of Christopher Tolkien), 1981, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, (paperback edition 2000), Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin.
  5. FINKENSTAEDT, Thomas, 1963, You und thou: Studien zur Anrede im Englischen, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
  6. HONEGGER, Thomas, 1999, 'Éowyn, Aragorn and the Hidden Dangers of Drink', Inklings 17, (Jahrbuch für Literatur und Ästhetik), Moers: Brendow, pp. 217-225.
  7. HONEGGER, Thomas, 2003, '"And if ye wol nat so, my lady sweete, Thanne preye I thee, [...]." Forms of address in Chaucer's The Knight's Tale', in TAAVITSAINEN, Irma and Andreas H. JUCKER (eds.), Diachronic Perspectives on Address Term Systems, (Pragmatics & Beyond), Amsterdam: Benjamins, pp. 61-84.
  8. JOHANNESSON, Nils-Lennart, 1997, 'The Speech of the Individual and of the Community in The Lord of the Rings', in BUCHS, Peter and Thomas HONEGGER (eds.), 1997, News from the Shire and Beyond -Studies on Tolkien, Zurich and Berne: Walking Tree Publishers, pp. 11-47.
  9. KLOCZKO, Edouard, 1995, Dictionnaire des langues elfiques, Toulon: Tamise Productions.
  10. KLOCZKO, Edouard, 2002, Dictionnaire des langues des Hobbits, des Nains, des Orques et autres créatures de la Terre du Milieu, de Númenor et d'Aman, Argenteuil: A.R.D.A. KREGE, Wolfgang, 2003, Elbisches Wörterbuch nach J.R.R. Tolkien, Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta.
  11. NOEL, Ruth S., 1980, The Languages of Tolkien's Middle-earth: A complete guide to all four- teen of the languages Tolkien invented, Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
  12. PERÄLÄ, Harri, 2000, 'Are High Elves Finno-Ugric?', http://www.sci.fi/\~alboin/finn\_que.htm (accessed 24 July 2002).
  13. PESCH, Helmut W., 2003, Elbisch, Bergisch Gladbach: Bastei Lübbe.
  14. SHIPPEY, Tom A., 1992, The Road to Middle-earth, (second edition), London: HarperCollins.
  15. SHIPPEY, Tom A., 2000, J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century, London: HarperCollins.
  16. TOLKIEN, J.R.R., 1975, 'Guide to the Names in The Lord of the Rings', in LOBDELL, Jared (ed.), 1975, A Tolkien Compass, New York: Ballantine Books, (reprinted 1980), pp. 168- 216.
  17. TOLKIEN, J.R.R., 1988, The Return of the Shadow, (Volume 6 of The History of Middle- earth, edited by Christopher Tolkien), London: HarperCollins.
  18. TOLKIEN, J.R.R., 1992a, The Lord of the Rings, (text of the second edition of 1966; one-vol- ume centenary edition), London: HarperCollins.
  19. TOLKIEN, J.R.R., 1992b, Sauron Defeated, (Volume 9 of The History of Middle-earth, edited by Christopher Tolkien), London: HarperCollins.
  20. TOLKIEN, J.R.R., 1996, The Peoples of Middle-earth, (Volume 12 of The History of Middle- earth, edited by Christopher Tolkien), London: HarperCollins.
  21. TOON, Thomas E., 1992, 'Old English Dialects', in HOGG, Richard M. (ed.), 1992, The Cam- bridge History of the English Language, Volume 1: The Beginnings to 1066, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 409-451.
  22. TURNER, Allan, 2003, 'A Theoretical Model for Tolkien Translation Criticism', in HONEGGER, Thomas (ed.), 2003, Tolkien in Translation, Zurich and Berne: Walking Tree Publishers, pp. 1-30.
  23. THOMAS HONEGGER holds a Ph.D. from the University of Zurich where he had been working as assistant and where he taught Old and Middle English. He is the author of From Phoenix to Chauntecleer: Medieval English Animal Poetry (1996) and has edited News from the Shire and Beyond -Studies on Tolkien (1997, together with Peter Buchs), Root and Branch -Ap- proaches towards Understanding Tolkien (1999), Authors, Heroes and Lovers (2001), Tolkien in Translation (2003), and Riddles, Knights, and Cross-Dressing Saints (2004). Apart from his publications on animals and Tolkien, he has written about Chaucer, Shakespeare, and medieval romance. His 'Habilitationsschrift' focused on the interaction between lovers in medieval narrative fiction. He is, since April 2002, Professor for Medieval Studies at the Friedrich-Schiller-University (Jena). Homepage: http://www.anglistik.uni-jena.de/personen/thomas-honegger/