Translating the Not Quite

[sheenaghpugh]

Just put a new article on translation up on my website. Translating the Not Quite is about my efforts to translate a German poem that wasn't quite in German, since it was by the Swiss German poet Johann Peter Hebel (1760-1826), who wrote in the Alemannic dialect. I've included the original and translation in an appendix; for a poem written about 200 years ago it contains some strangely contemporary end-of-the-world forebodings. The article was originally written for a university but ironically enough they said it wouldn't do because it wasn't in the dialect they favoured, namely academic-speak.

Comments

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

I'm copying the article for a friend who's into translating :)

And I do like those poems... there's something about the simplicity of words, and layers of meaning within them, that really appeals. I especially love that first one about the drunkard...

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

That was fascinating, and I'm impressed by your translating skills. I found the Swiss dialects hard to understand, and actually met a fair but of resentment to my Hochdeutsch there. There are newspapers and radio programs in dialect, and it does seem to be regional rather than class-based.

Interesting poems, and the old chap has a long view of life.

[sheenaghpugh]

Yes, I've seen an Alemannic poem that resents the very idea of "Hoch"-deutsch and remarks pointedly that rules are all very well for Germans but he's a "free-born Swiss" and will write the language as he damn well pleases! As you say, definitely a regional divide...

I'm pretty sure I would never understand it when spoken, but in writing it's just another code. Hebel is a remarkably un-judgemental guy for a parson, and a rather appealing personality comes through his stuff.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I lived in Switzerland for three months and found the coal dialect (Berner) very hard to understand, and often people wouldn't change to Hochdeutsch for me if they thought I was German. Some of their words are quite different too. My favourite is Chochichatschtli (a guess) for Schrank.

He sounds remarkably non-judgemental for a Swiss! I did not leave with much liking for them in general. They're pleasant enough to tourists but that's as far as it goes.

[glitterboy1.livejournal.com]

the article was originally written for a university...

Silly people. It's our gain, then - thank you for telling us about it. I've never read anything by Hebel before; that really is a striking picture of devastation in 'Die Vergänglichkeit'.

It's fascinating to hear about your thought process, and I'm glad you *did* steer clear of cod dialect: there really isn't any sense of them being comedy bumpkins.

[sheenaghpugh]

The uni complained, amusingly enough, about the information being "cloaked in such decidedly non-academic language". Now I have many times seen information "cloaked" in academic language, sometimes to the point that I couldn't understand a word, but it was news to me that meaning could be obscured by being written in plain English!

[wolfinthewood.livejournal.com]

Two terrific poems, by a poet I have never heard of. Thank you very much. I also enjoyed your essay on translation.