@RUTGERS.ARPA:LRC.HJJH@UTEXAS-20.ARPA (04/19/85)
From: LRC.HJJH@UTEXAS-20.ARPA ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ How WOULD Roman soldiers talk? ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ A little while back, someone complained at the use of distinctly modern locutions by Roman soldiers in an SF story. While seeing how something like that could "sit wrong" with a reader, I'd like to defend it in principle. In effect, the author must "translate", as much from an alien era and culture as from the actual language (in this case, presumably Vulgar Latin-- and, no, I don't mean "dirty", tho since they were soldiers, it undoubtedly was). The author has 2 choices, either to use archaic English to convey an aura of antiquity, or to match the content with some corresponding contemporary expressions. From the examples cited, as that author wasn't writing about Ancient Noble Romans, he rightly equated their modes of expression with their counterparts in this era. Of course, if the author is also a scholar, s/he could use direct translations of what would have probably been the actual parlance used. But even across languages in contemporary cultures, direct translations of language A can be utterly wrong rendered into language B. I remember, around 1970, vetting some translations of French romances in which sweet little old ladies would exclaim, "My God!" It was an \accurate/ translation. Sweet little old \French/ ladies say "Mon Dieu!" and neither they nor their hearers would think anything of it. But NOT sweet little old ladies in 1970 USA! A more truly accurate translation would have been something like "My goodness!" or "Gracious!" The original significance was the same, but rather than "real swearing", these expressions are euphemisms as proper to their speakers as military jargon to soldiers. -------- And speaking of real translations of SF from French, I'll always wonder whether the mention of "the stars in their orbits" on the 1st page of YOLANDA, GIRL OF THE EROSPHERE (Dominique Verseau, Dell, 1975) was a mis-translation, or a direct indication of how ghod- awful the book was going to be. -------