Babeled do re me

Translating lyrics is an art. It requires skill well beyond any other form of translation since it also involves respecting time, rhyme and sometimes even lip movements. Most songs are not translated as the actual meaning of the words is not as important as the sound.  By contrast, the audience demands to know what the message is. For example,  Disney  translates its songs and does a fine job at it.  Another interesting example where lyric translation was required was the well-known tune from The Sound of Music, do re me. It was necessary since the words connecting the sound must make sense in the language of the listener. The specific choices of word connections to the sound are rather interesting. I have chosen the lyrics from five languages I understand. 

Do

The original English referenced a doe, a female dear, not exactly a standard English vocabulary element. The French used dos, a back in English. Russian referred to дом [dom], a house. Hebrew took the word דוב [dov], a bear. Finally, Italian used the first-person singular form of the verb dare, to give.

Re

Both the original and French version connected the sound to the sun. The Russian lyricist strangely chose регби [regbi], rugby in English. The Hebrew version uses a more standard word ריח [re’ach], meaning smell. Italian uses the word re, meaning a king in English.

Mi

English and Italian took the first-person pronoun route, i.e. me. The French went half way, referring to mi, meaning half. The Russian referenced миска [miska], a bowl (for the cat). Hebrew took its meaning for the sound mi, which means who or whoever.

Fa

This note was very localized. The original English version adds the letter R at the end and turns it into far. French stretches the fa to facile, easy in meaning, literally. Likewise, the Russian translator used фазан [fazan], a pheasant. By contrast, the Hebrew adds the sound sa to the beginning and gets שפה [safa], meaning language. The Italian writer must have been tired as all s/he wrote was la nota dopo il Mi, the note after mi! I am almost sure that there is some Italian word with the sound fa.

Sol

For this sound, the two dominant techniques were homonyms and adding letters The English plays with the homonym sew, French with sol, ground, and Hebrew with סול [sol], the fish. The Italian version has the word sole, with the pronounced e, meaning sun. The Russian adds the grammatical ending to the sounds and comes up with Соль-ю [sol-yu], salt or spices.

La

Here, Oscar Hammerstein pulled an Italian trick. The original version says “the note to follow So”. The French and Italian lyricists went the direct route since la in both languages means there. The Russian translator added a consonant in the beginning and another syllable at the end and came up with лямка [lyamka], strap (of a bag). The Hebrew writer couldn’t apparently think of any word but was willing to come up with something witty, connecting the sound la to songs without words.

Se

For the last sound, each lyricist went with the sound. English pronounces the sounds as te, which leads to the typical English drink. The Italians say se, which sounds like si, yes.  The Hebrew word שיא [si] is the peak, literally. The Russian and French translator had to add something to the sound to make it work, сироп [sirup], as in the thick liquid, and siffler, to whistle, respectively.

So, while the song may be known worldwide, it is a classic example of localization and a tribute the talent and skill of those who translated it.

P.S. Based on comments, it appears that many languages have multiple translations.  Let me know if so.  I may write a follow up post on the such comparison. 

Sweet nothing in name

Cotton candy, that spindly confection of sugar first marketed in 1904, is loved by children (and many adults) worldwide. Originally created in the United States, it has become a part of the entertainment culture of many countries.  As for all foreign products, the challenge has been to find a name for it in the local language.  The process is interesting as the chosen focus in the nomenclature varies.

The original American product was invented in partnership by a candy confectioner and a dentist.  Apparently, even though you are paranoid, conspiracies do really exist. In referring to their new product, they emphasized its most positive trait, sweetness.  It was called cotton candy. The Japanese literarily translated the word, calling it wata ame. Curiously, the Swahili word for it, pampa pipi, also refers to it as a sweet or candy.

However, its dominant feature in its translation is its texture.  The British called it candy floss, which became fairy floss in Australia, emphasizing its thin strings. Others grabbed on its overall texture, referring to its sweet cotton wool, including in Russian, сладкая вата [sladkaya vata], Hebrew, צֶמֶר גֶּפֶן מָתוֹק [tzemer gefen matok], Italian, zucchero filato, and Spanish, algodón de azúcar, literally cotton of sugar.

Yet, a third route exists.  As cotton candy is light and airy, some cultures relate it to hair.  The French call it la barbe à papa, evoking the images of a grandfather’s beard. Similarly, the Arabic term, shaear albanat, literally meaning “girl’s hair”.

Regardless, all agree that cotton candy is sweet and airy.  All that remains open to debate, at least according to the Pittsburgh Pirates announcer Bob Walk, is which color is the real one, blue or pink. Personally, as Rhett Butler so ceremoniously declared in Gone With the Wind,I don’t give a damn as it is way too sweet for me, whatever hue it has been given. Most people, especially children, would disagree with me and rightly so.  Life needs more sweet nothings.

Language Inequality or the Joy of Challenges - Part 2

As was explained in the previous post, each language poses a different level of challenge to those who wish to learn it, depending on various factors.

4. Syntax. Linguist theorist claim that human brains are wired into in the subject-verb-object structure, meaning that people instinctively expect and understand that order.   Whether this is true or not, languages not bound by this order, i.e. those that use the case system require more energy to learn and understand but are much freer in terms of sentence construction.  A comparison of English and Russian demonstrates this point.  While English may have many words to learn, once the learner recognizes that a given word is a noun, it requires no more effort to process and apply that word.  The writer/speaker can place that noun in that form in any place where that word as a noun can enter.  For example, the form of the word shelf is the same in the following sentences: The shelf is not straight; Line up the shelf; The bottle is on the shelf. The caveat is that the order of words is vital importance and follows strict rules.  You cannot randomly mix up them up without changing the meaning.  By contrast, Russian, like other case-languages, places various suffixes to nouns depending on its function in the sentence or what the word before it. The meaning of all this complexity is that learners of the Russian language do not have the tools to understand or write a proper Russian sentence until they learn all six cases (which is still easier to do than the 19 cases of Finnish).  So, students of Russian earn their rewards.  On the other hand, once this skill is attained, it is hard to make an error in sentence construction since almost anything is allowed.

5. Roots. The rule in regards to learning a language is that the fewer roots there are, the easier the language. In other words, you get more miles (kilometers) for every word you learn.  So, Hebrew, a non-developing language for so long, is extremely easy to learn in that perspective while English is simply hell.  The other issue with roots is familiarity. To a certain point, being familiar with the roots from another language eases the process radically. English speakers generally do not struggle with Spanish because many of the words sound familiar.  It can happen that too much familiarity brings confusion.  I studied Italian for several years.  I had to remember the spelling differences between it and French, a more familiar language for me.  For example, the word and is et in French but e in Italian.  The same issue might arise among speakers of Slavic languages, among others.  It always helps to have some knowledge in advance.

6. Intonation and tone. All languages have intonations, the manner in which various kinds of sentences are spoken, i.e. statement, question, exclamation, etc.  This voice control varies from language to language and country to country and presents the greatest challenge to mastering a language since it requires conscious retraining of your voice.  For example, English has limited up/down waves when making a statement: I bought a car.  There is almost no difference in tone between the first and last word.  In Russian, with the equivalent sentence, the first word would have a normal tone but the volume would decrease until the last word almost disappears.  French, by contrast, will resemble a sine wave pattern, up and down.  In Italian, well, it would like an opera, to my ear at least.  However, a far greater learning challenge is tone-based languages, such as Chinese.  The same sound can have numerous meanings, all depending on the tone of the pronunciation. Small children pick up those tones quickly but most adults struggle to master them.

So, it should be clear that no language is a piece of cake in all aspects nor is any language impossible to learn.  Natural talent can be factor but motivation, time and effort can overcome any difficulty a language can pose.  Every language opens the world and its people.  This investment is clearly worthwhile.