A paragraph from the Hobbit - in a new style

patrickjwalsh · **Joined:** Wed 24 Jul 2013 2:31 am **Posts:** 329

NiallBeag wrote:

Or do you just leave the word in italics the whole time, using an English plural, and continue pushing the idea to young readers that Irish isn't a complete language...?

A Néill Bhig, complete languages do (all?) have loanwords. Do you use the word restaurant in English, using italics, thus pushing the idea to young readers that English isn't a complete language and has to be supplemented by French, or what?

My idea was to write it how I thought a native speaker would say it in a chatty style - if they are happy to say "microwave" in the middle of an Irish sentence, and "lads" or "leaids", what is wrong with "hobbit" and "na hobbits". Would the native speakers say hobbits, or would they automatically create a Gaelicised word on the fly? That is the conundrum I was addressing.

Other people have said they should have used more figures and words from Irish mythology in the Hobbit - see http://ansionnachfionn.com/2012/05/11/i ... cisations/ for someone else's view - although I feel that they would be too redolent of Ireland, and thus contextually wrong for the Hobbit. In any case, this was the least important of my criticisms of the translation - the key thing is that the introductory sentence was just wrong in Irish syntax, because you have to define first.

Benjamin · **Posted:** Sun 15 Dec 2013 3:22 pm

Another random fact of English used in good Irish is some counties names. You'll hear Is as Kildare é srl. :yes:

Mostly when talking about football but in the Gaeltacht they'd say Gaillimh, Corcaigh, Baile Átha Cliath, Luimneach depends on the county.

patrickjwalsh · **Joined:** Wed 24 Jul 2013 2:31 am **Posts:** 329

The next bit is:

Quote:

Théadh an tollán ar aghaidh is ar aghaidh, ní go díreach ar fad, isteach i dtaobh an chnoic -- An Cnoc, mar a thugadh gach uile duine ar feadh na mílte slí thart timpeall air -- agus is iomaí doras cruinn a d'osclaíodh amach ón tollán, ar thaobh amháin ar dtús agus ansin ar an taobh eile.

Problems include: the incorrect use of the past habitual, mílte used with no "de" after it (unless they do say that in some parts of the Gaeltacht - as I don't know all the possible native styles), iomaí (do they use this anywhere, or is it mó everywhere?), the doors "opening themselves". So I have come up with:

Quote:

Do chuaigh an tollán ar aghaidh is ar aghaidh, ní go díreach ar fad, isteach i gcliathán an chnuic – An Cnuc, mar a thugadh gach éinne ar feadh na mílte ’ shlí mórthímpall air – agus is mó doras cruínn beag ’ bhí amach uaidh ar thaobh amháin de ar dtúis agus ansan ar an dtaobh eile.

Should it be "doras a bhí amach uaidh" or "doras a tháinig amach uaidh"?

patrickjwalsh · **Joined:** Wed 24 Jul 2013 2:31 am **Posts:** 329

So far I have [I've changed fíorchúmpórdach for the tunnel to fíorchluthar, as I feel Nicholas Williams once again is lapsing into Béarlachas - a tunnel cannot be really "comfortable" - you can't sit on a tunnel - it can only be cosy]:

Do bhí hobbit ann, agus i bpoll sa talamh ’ bhí cónaí air. Níor rud gránna, s’lach, fliuch an poll san, áfaigh, lán de ghiotaíbh de phiastaíbh, agus lán de bhalaithe láibe. Ní lú ná ’ bhí sé t’rim, lom, gainmheach, gan ao’ rud ann le n-ithe ná le suí síos air. Poll hobbit dob ea é, agus mar sin bhí ana-chúmpórd ann.

Do bhí an doras róchruínn ar nós sleaspholl loinge, agus dath uaithne air, agus murlán buí práis ’na cheartlár. Do thug an doras isteach i halla thu, halla ar dhéanamh feadáin mar thollán, tollán fíorchluthar gan deatach ar bith ann. Do bhí painéil adhmaid ar na fallaíbh, agus leacáin agus brat ar an úrlár. Agus do bhí cathaoireacha snasta ann, agus a lán bacán i gcómhair hataí agus casóga—mar do thaithn sé go mór leis an hobbit nuair do tánathas ar chuaird chuige. Do chuaigh an tollán ar aghaidh is ar aghaidh, ní go díreach ar fad, isteach i gcliathán an chnuic – An Cnuc, mar a thugadh gach éinne ar feadh na mílte ’ shlí mórthímpall air – agus is mó doras cruínn beag ’ bhí amach uaidh ar thaobh amháin de ar dtúis agus ansan ar an dtaobh eile.

NiallBeag · **Joined:** Wed 19 Dec 2012 3:58 pm **Posts:** 488

patrickjwalsh wrote:

A Néill Bhig, complete languages do (all?) have loanwords. Do you use the word restaurant in English, using italics, thus pushing the idea to young readers that English isn't a complete language and has to be supplemented by French, or what?

I don't use a French R, I don't use a French "au" and I pronounce NT, rather than nasalising the A. And when it's plural, I add /s/, not the French silent S. IE. It is a naturalised English word that just happens to have originated in French.

Putting the word in in italics forces it to remain outside of Irish.

While I am personally opposed to including made-up words in English orthography (they're not English, after all), I would not complain if a translator chose to do that in an adults' book, but in a children's book, it's a completely different thing. Imagine if kids couldn't read half the novels in Irish until they had also learned to read English -- what would that do for Irish-medium primary schooling?

Quote:

My idea was to write it how I thought a native speaker would say it in a chatty style - if they are happy to say "microwave" in the middle of an Irish sentence, and "lads" or "leaids", what is wrong with "hobbit" and "na hobbits". Would the native speakers say hobbits, or would they automatically create a Gaelicised word on the fly? That is the conundrum I was addressing.

They would use the English. In fact, they would probably talk about the book mostly in English. So why bother translating it?

Yes, the writing's god-awful Béarlachas, but I just don't count the Gaelicised form among its weaknesses.

Braoin · **Joined:** Sat 17 Sep 2011 11:52 pm **Posts:** 460

patrickjwalsh wrote:

I am wondering whether I can Munsterise the Hobbit.

The existing translation has in paragraph one:

Quote:

I bpoll sa talamh a bhí cónaí ar hobad. Níor pholl gránna, salach, fliuch é, lán le péisteanna stróichthe agus le boladh láibe. Níor pholl tirim, lom, gainmheach a bhí ann ach an oiread, gan aon rud ann le n-ithe ná suí síos air; poll hobaid ab ea é agus is ionann sin agus compord.

This has some problems:

1. There is no Irish word "hobad". I support using loan words in italics.
2. The first sentence feels non-idiomatic. Irish defines what you're talking about and then comment on it (tá daoine ann, agus is dóigh leó go..., or is é is dóigh leó ná go - instead of is dóigh le daoine go....)
3. Lán le? Does this exist in Irish?
4. How common a word is stróichthe?
5. Le n-ithe ná suí síos air - doesn't "le" need to be repeated? Without repeating "le" it feels as if the "air" applies to "ithe" too. Le n-ithe air?

What do people think of this for a Munster attempt?

Quote:

Do bhí hobbit ann, agus i bpoll sa talamh ’ bhí cónaí air. Níor [rud] gránna, s’lach, fliuch an poll san, [áfaigh], lán de ghiotaíbh de phiastaíbh, agus [lán de] bhalaithe láibe. Ní lú ná ’ bhí sé t’rim, lom, gainmheach, gan ao’ rud ann le n-ithe ná le suí síos air. Poll hobbit dob ea é, agus is ionann san agus cúmpórd.
What is the idiomatic Connacht version? and the idiomatic Ulster version?

I haven't read The Hobbit, so I will have to look up the original English version to get an understanding of this paragraph. There is one small thing I do see, however:
lán le péisteanna
I would say:
lán péisteanna
I can see nothing wrong with 'hobad' though - easy to pronounce and it could easily grow on me...

...there's probably more, but I think I would have to start with the English version and re-translate into what draws the same picture in Gaeilge.

patrickjwalsh · **Joined:** Wed 24 Jul 2013 2:31 am **Posts:** 329

Braoin, it might make sense to ignore the published version in Irish and start with the English - and for the paragraphs I've done, the English is:

Quote:

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tube-shaped hall like a tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats-the hobbit was fond of visitors. The tunnel wound on and on, going fairly but not quite straight into the side of the hill-The Hill, as all the people for many miles round called it-and many little round doors opened out of it, first on one side and then on another.

I've realised my version didn't capture oozy and shiny properly - I was looking at Williams' version too much. I'll rethink those bits. How would you put these paragraphs into Irish?

Breandán · **Posted:** Mon 16 Dec 2013 12:16 am

NiallBeag wrote:

Dáithí Mac Giolla. wrote:

What do other languages do for words such as Hobbit ?

Checking the "other languages" links from the Wikipedia article Hobbit" gives us the following (note that some of these are singular, some are plural):
Bosnian: hobiti
Catalan: hòbbit
Czech: hobit
Danish: hobbit
German: hobbit
Estonian: kääbikud
Spanish: hobbits
Esperanto: hobito
French: hobbit
etc etc
and the Swedish is "hober"

So most are directly from the English, even to the point of breaking their own spelling rules ("hobbits" is utterly impossible in natural Spanish).

But anyhow, why borrow from English a word that is really just an anglicised transcription of a non-English, fictional language? The function of the spelling in the book was to make the word readily pronounceable to the reader, nothing more, nothing less. (Although the same obviously cannot be said of Elvish, Orcish etc.)

Borrowing a native English word is all well and good, but borrowing English to use as a auxiliary phonetic spelling embedded in Irish seems silly.

The spelling "hobad", despite it's initial H, does work well, because it can take an immediately obvious genitive: taigh hobaid. Trying to inflect "hobbit" would be more tricky. Do you broaden the final vowel? That rule applies to a closed set of words, so it wouldn't be recognised. Besides, by using the English form, it's going to be pronounced as English with a broad T, so you can't broaden it phonetically anyway. Add E -- hobbite? Again, the English spelling is going to interfere here, and it's also going to make it look like a feminine word, which seems an unlikely gender for a species of person in the context of Gaelic's masculine-dominant grammar.

Or do you just leave the word in italics the whole time, using an English plural, and continue pushing the idea to young readers that Irish isn't a complete language...?

I don't think the translators hobad is a bad effort at all.

The English "Hobbit" itself was explained by Tolkien as being derived from the man language hol-bytla "hole-builder" which later corrupted to Hobbit.

Monoglots of a given language will "corrupt" a loanword to its nearest equivalent phonemes in their own language.

Bilingual speakers will tend to try to retain the pronunciation of the language of origin of the word, even when it doesn't fit the rhythm, flow, grammar, etc., of the recipient language.

Hobad is in line with words like buicéad and buidéal, which only vaguely resemble the words they come from, but fit well with and follow the rules of the recipient langauge.

In the case of hobad, the h might haved also been avoided natively, giving obad. Perhaps the book should have been titled an tObad.

All in all, I think hobad is not a bad compromise.

Jay Bee · **Joined:** Tue 15 Nov 2011 7:35 am **Posts:** 1098

So what is the book like? Worth getting?

patrickjwalsh · **Joined:** Wed 24 Jul 2013 2:31 am **Posts:** 329

Jay Bee wrote:

So what is the book like? Worth getting?

No! If you've got it, it'd be worth suing the publishing house for your money back.

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