BotNS in German

Dan Rabin · 05 Dec 2004, 21:23 · from 2004-December.txt.gz

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From: wolfe-lists at danrabin.com (Dan Rabin)
Date: Sun Dec  5 21:23:57 2004
Subject: (urth) BotNS in German
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Hmpf MacSlow asks about the familiarity of the word "barbican" to 
native speakers of English.  It's a really important question, 
because Wolfe's use of unfamiliar words and neologisms is an 
essential part of the style he adopted for _The Book of the New Sun_. 
It gives a feeling of remoteness in time and place.

Wolfe discusses his choice of words in his "translator's notes" at 
the ends of the volumes.  These are worth considering.

I've noticed several categories of odd words in TBotNS.  I'll comment 
on how these categories affect me as a native reader of English with 
a good vocabulary, born and raised in the United States of America in 
the late 20th century:

1. Authentic English archaisms, especially from subjects no longer 
much studied.  "Barbican" is in this category, as are "falchion" and 
"destrier".  I have to look these up, but it's possible to get a lot 
from context, such as "barbican" and "bartizan" being parts of 
defensive walls, "falchion" being a type of sword-like weapon, 
"arbalest" being something like a crossbow, "destrier" having the 
role of a horse, and so forth.  Is "hetman" in this category?

2. Derivations from Latin or Greek scientific terminology, such as 
"baluchither" from "baluchitherium" or "smilodon" taken as is. 
"Arctother" might be in this class.  These are decipherable if one 
has seen the science.  Here the effect is that things from our 
fossilized past are everyday animals in Severian's time and place. 
Wolfe-as-"translator" comments on this technique.

3. Latin and Greek neologisms or rarities, such as "alghedonic" 
("pain-pleasure"), "chrisos" ("gold"?), "archon" (ruler), "cacogen" 
("ugly origin"?), "hierodule" ("holy slave")  Wolfe-as-translator 
says he uses Latin to represent languages that seem learned but 
extinct to Severian (as in the name "Terminus Est").  Unfamiliar 
words with classical roots can at best be decoded by present-day 
readers--they give the feeling that Severian's environment retains 
much that is ancient, like coming across a Greek or Roman ruin in the 
middle of a European town (something we don't have here in America).

It's worth noting that English went through a period a few hundred 
years ago of introducing Classical terms into the language, many of 
which have fallen by the wayside, but many of which remain.  I have 
the impression that German prefers not to make Classical borrowings, 
but the cultural relationship of Classical civilization to the 
reader's milieu is probably much the same for German as for English.

4.  Authentic religious and philosophical terms: "theodicy", 
"theanthropos", "monstrance"; occasional Hebraisms ("Adonai").  I'm 
not familiar with Christian theology, but here again I'm generally 
able to deduce the subject of discourse from context without being 
precisely correct.

Now I have a question: is "pinakotheken" recognizable in contemporary 
German?  If so, it certainly shouldn't be translated as itself!  It's 
very obscure in English, and serves to give the feeling that 
Severian's mileu has some very unfamiliar names for very familiar 
things.  Odd, though, that the word occurs near the episode in 
Ultan's library, which is called a "library", not a "bibliothek".

Since we've discussed Tolkien recently, it's worth noting that

A. Wolfe corresponded with Tolkien concerning the etymology of "warg",
B. Tolkien played this game of preserving linguistic relationships 
across a "translation", except he actually invented some of the 
languages of the imaginary locale.  He knew that a Gondorian accent 
in Westron sounded archaic and elevated to Hobbits of the Shire, and 
he knew that Galadriel's chant "Namarie" was in a poetic register of 
Quenya.  Nobody like Tolkien, not in _my_ Book of Gold anyhow.

   -- Dan Rabin

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