Discussion Friday

[geraineon]

Time for Discussion Friday again!

This came up not too long ago, but do you have opinions and preferences for translation choices when it comes to terms related to the court/royalty, and best practices in translating different registers of speech (transliteration with footnotes vs. translation to the closest term with footnotes vs. something else)?

Does any of the languages you speak have a separate more ceremonial/official register? How different is it from the language used casually?

(I'm running a little low on discussion topic ideas. Private message me if you have some ideas. Otherwise, I'll start recycling last year's topics when I don't have a new topic in mind!)

Comments

[larryhammer]

I have more opinions about handling different registers of Japanese than I do Chinese, in part because I've less experience with the latter. When translating the former, I usually flatten the different registers (it's a sliding scale that rises ridiculously high) down to two or three, roughly nameable as formal / informal / colloquial. English doesn't have much corresponding to the humble/respectful axis, so that distinction is often the first to go.

I'm a strong proponent of localization unless a translation has a specific purpose requiring literal rendering. When I have dealt with official and scholarly titles in Chinese, I usually go with the closest plain-English equivalent I can find, with a footnote only if knowing the literal actually makes a difference. I don't have a consistent practice, yet, nor do I know how to handle all the distinctions of kindred terms. Nor for that matter, humble speech in imperial contexts.

[geraineon]

Do you preserve the nuances from the humble/respectful register when translating? I suppose that maps onto English's formal register but not entirely?

Kindred terms is hard... I guess it will be a case-by-case thing.

[larryhammer]

I struggle with that, because yeah, humble/respectful does indeed map more or less onto formal/informal, even though those are different scales. There's ways you can hint at some of it, but this ignorant one must confess they come across as artificial in English.

Case-by-case indeed -- is it important that the reader know in this moment the exact shade of relationship and all that implies, and is it important enough to interrupt the reader's flow to explain right this moment?

[lessonsinescapology]

I believe many languages have a different speech or forms of respect. English seems to be lacking in that part. In Thai for example, there's a whole language for royalty using special diction. It's why translation of Japanese/Korean/Chinese novels into Thai doesn't have as many obstacles as English. From what I observed in published novels, the translator uses the corresponding Thai term or the well-known Chinese term transliterated with a footnote. Readers of historical novels are well-versed in the correct terminology, and many also watch Cdramas so it's not a huge learning curve for them.

I've read some published works by English publishers and the heavy-handed localization bothers me a lot. It doesn't even need to be Chinese. A Korean manga with a faux European setting had its characters speaking in casual American language! Surely it wouldn't have killed prospective readers to read a translation in normal English without American slang.

[halfcactus]

It's why translation of Japanese/Korean/Chinese novels into Thai doesn't have as many obstacles as English. . . Readers of historical novels are well-versed in the correct terminology, and many also watch Cdramas so it's not a huge learning curve for them.
Ohhhhh this is so fascinating!

LOL @ the Americanized faux-European manhwa. I read so many of those but never notice because they're so un-serious. 😂 Usually what stands out with me is how the localizations never convert the in-universe currency which is usually based on won.

[geraineon]

Never convert... does it mean the prices do not make sense?

[halfcactus]

It tends to be disorienting at first because things always cost hundred thousands and millions of gold but it always makes more sense when you remember the original audience is Korean. XD But like I said, the stuff I read is usually too un-serious for any detail to faze me, it's just mildly confusing for me when they localize Korean names to a western audience as Firstname Lastname but keep the currency as it is.

[geraineon]

That does sound kinda confusing but I can see how that does fade into the background after a while.

[lessonsinescapology]

For the Won, I'm guessing it's modern setting for a manga/manhwa?

[halfcactus]

Faux European fantasy—the currency is fantasy but feels based on won... And I swear I once read a fantasy manhwa where the name of their country/world was "Orkea" or something 😂

[lessonsinescapology]

LOL!

[geraineon]

Malay has a whole separate thing for royalty too... the joke is, our royalty do not even really know it anymore because they are all rich and UK educated lol.

Heavy-handed localization, imo, also seems to look down on the ability of the readers, as if they won't understand or be interested unless it's heavily localized.

[lessonsinescapology]

LOL! That does sound ironic.

I think it also looks down on the author of the work by removing certain cultural aspects of it.

[aurumcalendula]

re: translations choices, I'm on team give me all the footnotes about the thing. w/r/t transliteration vs translation, I think I tends to lean towards translation, but tbh it depends if I'd find the choice of translated term distracting (I'm not fond of 'Seigniors').

While they're not translations, I like how Aliette de Bodard's stories indicate various registers (iirc it shows up the most in her Xuya and Dominion of the Fallen related stories).

[geraineon]

Seignoirs?! Which translation was that?

Ah, I really should read more of de Bodard. I've read two so far, and I keep thinking I'd love them more than I actually did but on paper, de Bodard stuff should really be my thing.

[aurumcalendula]

Seignoirs is from Melts' FGEP and JWQS fan translations (I'm kinda curious if the official versions will go with something else).

Which of de Bodard's stuff have you read?

[geraineon]

I've read Fireheart Tiger, and Of Dragons Feasts and Murders. I enjoyed both of them, but they just didn't really linger, I guess.

[ehyde]

When reading The Imperial Uncle I noticed the translator using the royal "we" for the emperor, and strangely it didn't work as well as I expected -- I think the context wasn't overly formal so it didn't even register as an imperial pronoun at first, I was just like "wait, who else are you talking about?" I think simply capitalizing the We would be enough to make it work, in this case at least.

"Accidentally Having a Baby With the Enemy Prince" used untranslated royal pronouns, and later in the story, there was a point where one of the characters (who had been in disguise earlier) was thinking about how it felt to finally use the correct pronoun in their interactions... I wonder how you'd preserve a moment like that, in localization?

[geraineon]

I don't remember if I had any reaction to "we" in Imperial Uncle (I don't even remember it used royal "we" so maybe it didn't ping me as royal "we" too).

I wonder if in situations like "Accidentally Having a Baby with the Enemy Prince", it would work to add sentences in between to indicate that he's using a different pronoun than he normally would (instead of choosing to translate or transliterate the pronoun itself).