I am researching for a Master's thesis on Beowulf. Today, I was reading a classic essay that argued that one of Beowulf's more superhuman feats--where he swims underwater for a full day to access the lair of Grendel's mother--was actually a misinterpretation of a word assumed to mean "all day" that (the author claimed) actually meant "daylight," offering the decidedly less exciting reading that a fully human Beowulf dove into a lake during the day.
This got me thinking about idioms and translations. I wondered if, 1000 years from now, scholars of English might marvel at stories that claim that pets rain from the sky and a political system where punches to the groin replace ordinary discourse! This in turn got me thinking about Tolkien's world and how idioms and other misunderstandings "lost in translation" might influence what we know about the early history of Middle-earth. Tolkien presented his stories as histories and myths passed down through the ages through both oral and written tradition. This tradition spanned thousands of years and often required translation from one language to another. Surely there were doubts, misunderstandings, and mistakes during this process.
This prompt is for any and all fanworks dealing with idioms in the languages of Middle-earth and translations between the languages of Middle-earth. How, for example, might Bilbo's imperfect understanding of Quenya have affected his understanding of early history? Did Maedhros, for example, really hang on Thangorodrim for years or decades, or was this like Beowulf's dive: based on a word with a fairly dull meaning but misunderstood to give the story a marvelous coloring? Or the prompt could be used to create a fanwork about characters who speak different languages or dialects trying to communicate. Would Luthien, for instance, fully understand the Sindarin spoken by an Elf raised in Mithrim? What conflict or comedy might arise at their first meeting? These are just a few ideas--all fanworks that feature idioms and translations will fit for this one!
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timeasmymeasure
Any Character/Age/Genre, Idioms and Translations
Date: 2015-02-28 01:11 am (UTC)This got me thinking about idioms and translations. I wondered if, 1000 years from now, scholars of English might marvel at stories that claim that pets rain from the sky and a political system where punches to the groin replace ordinary discourse! This in turn got me thinking about Tolkien's world and how idioms and other misunderstandings "lost in translation" might influence what we know about the early history of Middle-earth. Tolkien presented his stories as histories and myths passed down through the ages through both oral and written tradition. This tradition spanned thousands of years and often required translation from one language to another. Surely there were doubts, misunderstandings, and mistakes during this process.
This prompt is for any and all fanworks dealing with idioms in the languages of Middle-earth and translations between the languages of Middle-earth. How, for example, might Bilbo's imperfect understanding of Quenya have affected his understanding of early history? Did Maedhros, for example, really hang on Thangorodrim for years or decades, or was this like Beowulf's dive: based on a word with a fairly dull meaning but misunderstood to give the story a marvelous coloring? Or the prompt could be used to create a fanwork about characters who speak different languages or dialects trying to communicate. Would Luthien, for instance, fully understand the Sindarin spoken by an Elf raised in Mithrim? What conflict or comedy might arise at their first meeting? These are just a few ideas--all fanworks that feature idioms and translations will fit for this one!