Etymology/meaning/onomatopoeic aspects of the word "Urth"

Ron Crown · 24 Apr 2008, 17:57 · from 2008-April.txt.gz

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From: crownrw at slu.edu (Ron Crown)
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2008 12:57:16 -0500
Subject: (urth) Etymology/meaning/onomatopoeic aspects of the word "Urth"
In-Reply-To: <73d3d6710804241020k7c71f1a0u6fd02ac36c946de4 at mail.gmail.com>
References: <73d3d6710804241020k7c71f1a0u6fd02ac36c946de4 at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4810C9FC.4090409 at slu.edu>

Pavel,

If Ur means in Czech what it does in German, viz., "a long time ago," 
"originally," then the connotation of "Urzeme" is directly the opposite 
of what Wolfe was trying to achieve with "Urth" by distancing from our 
customary term "Earth" to underscore the distance in time from us.  
Translation is always tricky and I've long wondered how the unusual 
words that Wolfe used in the Book of the New Sun would be translated.  
I've got both German and French editions of the Book but haven't managed 
to work all the way through them yet.  The German edition does use 
"Urth," however, while the French uses "Teur" which does something 
similar to "Terre" that "Urth" does to "Earth."

A  lot of Wolfe's nuances would, I think, be virtually impossible to 
convey in another language, for example, how do you convey the 
Christ/Apollo connotations of the New Sun/Son?  German at least has a 
degree of assonance (Sonne/Sohn) but French (fils, soleil)?
Ron Crown

Pavel Baki? wrote:
> A question for the first-language speakers out there: We have a 
> discussion going on concerning a proper rendering of the word "Urth" 
> into Czech, and would appreciate any comments concerning the 
> connotations the word has for a native speaker, apart form the obvious 
> "Earth". An existing translation of /The Shadow of the Torturer/ has 
> "Urzem?", which translates literally as "Ur-Earth" (without the 
> repetition of the "r" phoneme or the "vowel-consonant[s]" syllable 
> structure, of course).
>
> I /did /search for previous threads concerning the topic, but the fact 
> of the archive-site being itself called Urth made it somewhat difficult.
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