29 October 2009

The Story of French

I've just started reading The Story of French by Jean-Benoît Nadeau and Julie Barlow, and it is a fantastic book. Although I'm constantly reminded of reading Bill Bryson's Mother Tongue in St. Andrews, Scotland, in the winter of 2006 and having my mind blown repeatedly.

I'm a sucker for interesting facts about language and how it changes over time, which leads me to include the following excerpt from The Story of French regarding the evolution of Anglo-Norman and subsequent formation of French, and its effect on the English language.
. . . The English language is an excellent laboratory for examining the different trends that were at work in the formation of French. For the word château, the Norman variant castel produced castle, whereas the Paris variant chastel produced chastelain and châtelaine. There are many other examples; for example, chasser (to hunt), which was pronounced chacier around Paris, but cachier in Normandy, produced chase and catch. Real, royal and regal meant the same thing in Norman, Françoys and Latin respectively, but English took them on and gave them each different meanings. The term real estate comes from two Anglo-Norman terms. Leal, loyal and legal followed the same pattern, although leal (meaning both "loyal" and "legal") has fallen out of use. Warranty and guarantee are the same word, pronounced with a Norman and a Françoys accent respectively; this difference in pronunciation also explains how Guillaume became William, guerre became war and Gaul became Walloon (p. 33).
What struck me most at first was the weight of the last sentence. I always knew that Guillaume was the French version of William, but I had never realized that in Anglo-Norman and the subsequent early incarnations of the modern French language, the pronunciation of g and w was the same, thereby drawing a relationship between guarantee and warranty that I never knew existed. It's also notable that guarantee and warranty are essentially the same word, though spelled differently. English is marvelous and fascinating to me because it can get away with making so many of the same sounds look different when written, such as the uar and arr, -ty and -tee of guarantee and warranty, respectively.

I'm only on page 33 of the book; I expect a lot of the cool stuff I find to overflow into this space. It's too good not to.

28 October 2009

The Danske Tekster, part two

Preface: In my previous post, when I said "post a translation on Thursday," I meant that I would do so on the last Wednesday in October.

After writing my last post featuring the text in Dansk to be translated, I found that Danish: An Elementary Grammar Reader is available on Google Books. I hope nobody cheated.

Here's the original text followed by the translation.
Nu vil vi begynde. Vi vil lære dansk. Mange danske ord er i familie med ('med', with) engelske ord.

Vi er i et rum i et hus i England. her er en dør, og ('og',
and) der er to vinduer. Vi kan se ud i en park, hvor der er mange børn. Solen skinner; det er en varm dag. Det er mandag den første september. I parken sidder en ung mand på ('på', on) en bænk og drømmer. På hans knæ er en åben bog. Et lille barn går i det grønne græs. Det lille barn har en ny spade i hånden; barnet vil grave et dybt hul. I et bed, hvor der er friske røde og hvide roser, går en høne og en tam ravn. En stork flyver over græsset. På græsset står en fed mand med en rød næse; han sægler iskrem. Alle børnene bil have is. Det er en varm eftersommerdag.
--
Now will we begin. We will learn Danish. Many Danish words are in family with (i.e. are related to) English words.

We are in a room in a house in England. Here is a door, and there are two windows. We can see out in (i.e. into) a park, where there are many children (cf. Scotch 'bairn'). The sun (cf. Latin and French and the English word
solstice) shines; it is a warm day. It is Monday and the first (of) September. In the park sits a young man on a bench and dreams. On his knees is an open book. A little child goes (i.e. is walking) in the green grass. the little child has a new spade in the hand (i.e. in his hand); the child will (i.e. wants to) dig (cf. the English noun grave) a deep hole. In a bed (i.e. flower-bed), where there are fresh red and white roses, go a hen and a tame raven. A stork flies over the grass. On the grass stands a fat man with a red nose; he sells ice-cream. All the children will have (i.e. want) ices. It is a warm after-summer-day (i.e. late summer day).
Reading the translated text, it may be rather obvious that the translation is a literal one. The interesting thing about translation is that there is often a philosophical divide regarding how to proceed with a translation (especially if a translator is working with fiction). A translator can proceed with a literal translation or choose to reshape the text to convey the original author's meaning, but not necessarily the syntax. The second option, to reshape the text, is pretty appealing from a linguistic standpoint, if only because a literal translation often produces an exit text similar to the one above: one that conveys the meaning of the original author but with a syntax that shows it was first written in another language. Reshaping a sentence according to meaning is certainly a more hands-on task for a translator, but if the exit text is to be devoid of awkward constructions (e.g., "In the park sits a young man on a bench and dreams."; "All the children will want ices."), it is important to think of the exit text's audience and not simply the author's meaning.