'Bottom, thou art translated.'

[davem]

So anyway, I've just read a recent translation of the Vinland Sagas & noticed something interesting. (The Vinland Sagas, by the way, tell the story of the Norse discovery of America.)

The interesting thing is that the name the Viking settlers used for the inhabitants of North America, or 'Vinland', was 'Skraelings' & Wikipedia has the following definition:

The word skræling is the only word surviving into modern times from the Old Norse dialect spoken by the medieval Norse Greenlanders. In modern Icelandic, skrælingi means a barbarian. The origin of the word is not certain but it is probably based on the Old Norse word "skrá" which meant "skin" and also (as a verb) "to put in writing" (which was done on dried skin in Iceland for example in the case of the Icelandic Sagas). This would refer to the fact that the Inuit (both Dorset and Thule) as well as the other indigenous people the Norse Greenlanders met wore clothes made of skin, in contrast to the woven wool clothes worn by the Norse.

Now what did I find interesting about this?

Well, the new translation (taken from the Icelandic publisher Leifur Erickson translation of all the Sagas of Icelanders, which is intended to be the most accurate translation yet made) doesn't use 'Skraelings'. It translates the word as 'natives'.

Now 'natives' is certainly politically correct, exchanging a possibly offensive term meaning 'barbarian' for something more acceptable to modern readers - particularly to readers of Innuit descent - it is actually creating a false impression of the Viking settlers of Vinland & of the writers of the Sagas. The Viking settlers called the 'natives' Skraelings - barbarians, because they believed (wrongly) that's what they were.

Now, I think Skraelings should have been left (as it has been in every other translation I've read, partly because its honest & reflects the way the Vikings thought of the natives, but also because there's something evocative about the very sound of the word. Skraelings sounds like a 'harsh' & 'dangerous' - not to mention that it 'is the only word surviving into modern times from the Old Norse dialect spoken by the medieval Norse Greenlanders'. So this most accurate 'PC' translation is actually wrong, &, worse, misleading.

Which got me thinking....I read that in some older translations of TH into Russian the translator had Bilbo exclaiming things like 'Good Heavens!' at various points, which introduces a 'religious' element into the story which is not there in the original.

Are there examples of such 'translations' of Tolkien's work which are not strictly correct, & made for reasons of political correctness, etc?

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Well, the new German translation (by Krege) has often been cited for such things as Sam calling Frodo "Boss" - which might be what could be used nowadays, but LotR isn't nowadays! There are many other examples of vocabulary that lowers the story to a vernacular level instead of bringing out the "high and lofty" character of the book. However, I don't own the modern translation, so I can't give specific examples now. Perhaps other German language readers can add more.

The purpose of these changes was not for political correctness, but for modernizing the text to attract a young generation. Whether it has really succeeded in achieving that aim I can't say.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Estelyn Telcontar

Well, the new German translation (by Krege) has often been cited for such things as Sam calling Frodo "Boss" - which might be what could be used nowadays, but LotR isn't nowadays! There are many other examples of vocabulary that lowers the story to a vernacular level instead of bringing out the "high and lofty" character of the book. However, I don't own the modern translation, so I can't give specific examples now. Perhaps other German language readers can add more.

That's interesting, because in a way the change from 'Master' to 'Boss' doesn't so much make the story 'more accessible' to a younger readership as change the relationship between the two into one of employer-employee.

Now, not to push this too far, but I know that a lot of accusations of racism aimed at LotR are based on the descriptions of the enemy as 'dark', 'swarthy', & suchlike, & it would be easy for a translator to 'alter' such descriptions to avoid such accusations.

However, what interests me is the extent to which such changes alter the reader's understanding. To go back the the 'Skraelings' example, to refer to the inhabitants of Vinland as 'barbarians' is very different to referring to them as 'natives'. 'Barbarians' is perjorative & 'natives' is neutral. In the same way if Sam calls Frodo 'boss' he is acknowledging that he is his employer, but if he calls him Master he is implying so much more than that, because 'Master' can also imply 'teacher' or 'guide' (& let's not ignore the implication of 'better' which is implied - something I believe Tolkien was examining, or even 'playing with'). A reader of the original will pick up on that implication whereas a reader of the German probably won't. Certainly 'boss' is not a 'neutral' translation of Master.....

[Bêthberry]

I always enjoy the opening line in your posts, davem. Your "So" and "So anyway" reminds me muchly of "hwæt" although I suppose you can ascribe that remembrance to my reading of Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf.

I probably share many of the regrets and hesitations over translations and "modernisations" that Esty and davem have. However, I would like to step back just a sec to consider an assumption in the first post here. Is 'political correctness' the only motivator in using 'native' for 'Skræling'?

A starting point is to consider if skræling exists in any English dictionaries. It does not appear in the OED and it is not in the dictionary.com as an English word. It does appear in encyclopedias, but there it appears as Old Norse. So the translator could be legitimately and honestly looking for a specific English word, believing that skræling is not English and would not be understood by the English reader. Another point to consider is that, while skræling might mean barbarian in modern Icelandic, that is not necessarily the meaning it had in the ancient texts.

The orgin of the work is not clearly known, as this Reference.com entry suggests. It could in fact have been an attempt to reproduce the name of the North American tribe. And certainly 'sickly' could well describe the effect of disease which the Europeans brought to Vinland.

Originally Posted by Reference.com

As recounted in the Greenlander (Grœnlendinga) saga, the word skraeling may have been the name of one of the North American tribes encountered during initial contact. A Norseman saved two Skraeling boys from the sea. As was their custom, the Skraeling boys became the Norseman's life-long servants. During this service the Skraeling boys indicated that the word "skraeling" was how their peoples' name was pronounced in Norse.

A further point to consider is that the original meaning of 'barbarian' was far, far less derogatory than the word became in English usage. In classical Greek and Latin, its first meaning (as I understand, not being a scholar of ancient languages) was simply someone who was not a Hellenic or, latterly, Roman speaker. It was linguistic. It is probably impossible to "go back" to this more neutral meaning of 'barbarian', but it is worthwhile considering if "native" is not in fact closer to this original idea of separating native from non-native speaker. It's a jump I admit, as logically 'non-native' would be closer, but my point is really to ask if, in the original sagas, the word was necessarily as pejorative as our later usages make it.

If that is the case, then the translator has tried to recapture an historically accurate rendition of the relationship between the Vikings, Greenlanders, and the North American tribes. It was, after all, the later Europeans who slaughtered the Boetiuk Indians by putting a bounty on their heads, not the Vikings. It was the later Europeans (aka English) who put the highly derogatory connotations on barbarian. But did the Vikings share this attitude towards others? Christian Europe created the image of the Vikings as brutal, barbarous tribes who went around killing and slaughtering, but modern historical and anthropological research suggests that is not an accurate reflection of the Vikings' attitude towards other tribes.

These are, I think, considerations far more significant than the handy old stand-by of "political correctness." Language changes over time and there is an honest attempt by translators to capture an original meaning which may be lost by the "baggage" which words pick up after the text was originally created.

Of 'boss' and 'master' the issue is quite different, between very different forms of social and economic organisation. Yet can we really say that "master" is an example of the 'high and lofty' tone? Not everything medieval was high and lofty, particularly social relationships. I'm not saying that I prefer 'boss' to 'master', just that power and authority pertains also to medieval terminology.

[davem]

I take your point re Skraelings - though it has been kept in all translations I've read so far. And that perhaps is also PC - because apparently the closest literal translation is 'wretches'.

The early Norwegian
settlers in Greenland sought to control their natural environment in the same way that they did
in their native Norway. By not recognizing the fundamental differences between their former
environment and their new one their society eventually collapsed. Had the Norse
Greenlanders interacted with the indigenous people rather than seeing them to be mere
“skraelings” (“wretches”), they might have learned how to cope and survive in Greenland’s
extreme environment. Similarly, in Vineland, had the Norse Greenlanders interacted with the
Labrador and Newfoundland Beothuks on arrival rather than killing them on sight, they may
well have colonized North America (http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache...ient=firefox-a)

That said apparently the Icelanders used the name to refer to the inhabitants of Greenland too.

[Lalwendë]

Of course there are many meanings to "Master" as used for Frodo, as davem gets at. There's Master in the sense of the older, wiser person, one who might teach or lead a pupil. And Master in the sense of a formal title for a young man. Master in the sense of military leader or commander. I'm not quite sure why a German translation would alter Master to the more limiting word "Boss" as isn't Meister much the same in German as in English? Possessed of multiple meanings?

And Skraelings are found in His Dark Materials. Interesting as one of the accusations sometimes levelled at Pullman is that he's a modern, PC, trendy type. But he's not afraid to use that word.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by davem

I take your point re Skraelings - though it has been kept in all translations I've read so far. And that perhaps is also PC - because apparently the closest literal translation is 'wretches'.

That said apparently the Icelanders used the name to refer to the inhabitants of Greenland too.

I don't know which I should do first--applaud your ingenuity in finding such an article or laugh hysterically at an earnest engineer doing anthropological or archeological lectures! That said, the esteemed Professor Ircha does not footnote his source for the interpretation of 'wretches' and that I would like to see simply because the linguistic sources say the word's etymology is unclear. It's a tangled web when a pragmatic researcher takes on cultural studies and treats hypotheses like literal fact. His source for those claims about the Norse (Diamond's book Collapse) has been contested and his off hand remark about relations with the Inuit does not really reflect the general consensus about the relationship of the two cultures.

To go back to the switch from Skræling to native, I can't help but wonder if it reflects a change in assumption about the readership of the sagas--the great loss of cultural knowledge which makes familarity with a Norse word no longer a given, just as familiarity with the social organisation reflected in 'master' can no longer be assumed either. Kids these days--all they know is pop culture.

Pullman uses Skræling in a fantasy world, though, doesn't he? I mean, are readers to take either of his Oxfords as the actual historical one we live in or can visit? So he can take a word and tilt it a bit without being literally or pedantically referring to the actual historical usage of the word. He's calling up something different than a translator of an historical text would be doing.