2015年11月4日 星期三

威士忌落入眼鏡; “陰蒂節​​”。比利時譯名的困惑:名實不符; Out of Place; Founding Fathers

劉健偉

比利時

下個月要去比利時出差,先了解一下這個國家。比利時有荷語,法語,德語三個官方語言,可是不管用你那個語言描述國名(荷語 België,法語 Belgique,德語 Belgien) 都難以和中文譯名 “比利時” 產生聯想,用英文的 Belgium 也是一樣的問題。

清代福建巡撫徐繼畬是對西學有興趣的開明人士,他在任內結識了美國傳教士雅裨理(Rev. David Abeel),對雅裨理帶來的世界地圖極感興趣,徐繼畬向他詢問各國國名,以此為基礎編寫了《瀛寰志略》,這是當時介紹世界各國的權威參考書,其中卷六為 “歐羅巴比利時國”,這是中文譯名 “比利時” 的來源。《瀛寰志略》圖文並茂,紅點標記即比利時(見附圖)。


比利時中文譯名的疑問究竟怎麽回事呢?徐繼畬是山西人,美國傳教士雅裨理在廈門傳教會閩南語,可是這兩種語言怎麼湊也搞不出 “比利時” 啊!!我猜他們倆都不會對方的語言,溝通應該是靠翻譯,中文譯名 “比利時” 會不會是翻譯員的傑作?


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hc:這問題有點意思,不過,當時另有一派翻譯法為:美利堅、英吉利、法蘭西、俄羅斯、瑞典、瑞士、西班牙、......

*****

曹永洋



他說余光中指出:以前電影《良相佐國》、《化身博士》Stevenson’s “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,”等都翻譯錯誤,因為More 沒當首相、Doctor 當為"醫生"等等。

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 鄉關


家鄉、故鄉。唐˙崔顥˙黃鶴樓詩:「日暮鄉關何處是?煙波江上使人愁。」唐˙岑參˙暮春虢州東亭送李司馬歸扶風別廬詩:「西望鄉關腸欲斷,對君衫袖淚痕斑。」亦作「鄉國」、「鄉井」。





1. 格格不入
相似詞 方枘圓鑿、水火不容 相反詞 處處圓通、水乳交融、融為一體
抵觸阻隔而不相合。清˙袁枚˙寄房師鄧遜齋先生書:「以前輩之典型,合後來之花樣,自然格格不入。」



{鄉關何處} 彭淮棟譯,台北立緒
{格格不入}

Edward Wadie Said was born in Jerusalem, Mandatory Palestine on this day in 1935.

“You cannot continue to victimize someone else just because you yourself were a victim once—there has to be a limit” 
― Edward Said


****Founding Fathers 建國/開國諸賢

李酉潭:美國人所謂的Founding Fathers,翻譯成「國父們」,太沉重了。

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Grelo de la especie Brassica rapa, del grupo Ruvo

el kai lan (芥兰) 


Many visitors to this festival are likely to be disappointed.


Food festival organisers say they are ‘quite surprised’ to learn event in…
THEGUARDIAN.COM|由 ASHIFA KASSAM 上傳

It was meant to be a culinary festival celebrating grelo, the leafy green vegetable that is a staple in the Galician town of As Pontes in north-west Spain.
But for the past few months, the small town was marketing a very different kind of festival after it used Google Translate to put the Galician word grelo into Castilian Spanish, ending up with it inviting people to take part in a “clitoris festival”.“陰蒂的節日​​”。
“It was quite a surprise,” Montserrat García, the town’s spokesperson, told the Guardian. “At first, we didn’t believe what we were seeing.”



Local officials in As Pontes – population 11,000 – had written the announcement for the annual festival in Galician, one of the official languages of the northern Spanish region. They used Google Translate for the Spanish-language version of the text.
It meant the town’s “Feria do grelo” or rapini festival – held every February with tastings and awards for the best grelos – became “Feria clitoris” in Spanish.
The translated announcement read: “The clitoris is one of the typical products of Galician cuisine. Since 1981 ... the festival has made the clitoris one of the star products of its local gastronomy.”
García said the translation error was likely on the town’s official website for months before it was noticed late last week.



She believed the online translation tool mistook the Galician word for the Portuguese version, which refers to the vegetable but also can be used as slang for clitoris.
Officials in As Pontes are considering filing a formal complaint with Google. García said: “They should recognise Galician and translate it accurately.”
Google Translate has since changed the translation, with grelo now said to mean “brote” or sprout. But García remains dissatisfied: “It’s still not the best way of describing grelo, as it is a vegetable from the turnip family.”
Town officials have turned their backs on Google Translate, but there has been an upside to the embarrassing error, García said, as it caused a surge of interest in this year’s festival. “It’s become a means – albeit a very odd means – of promoting our festival.”
A Google spokesperson said: “Google Translate is an automatic translator – that is, it works without the intervention of human translators, using state-of-the-art technology instead. When Google Translate generates a translation, it looks for patterns in hundreds of millions of documents to help decide on the best translation for you.
“Since the translations are generated by machines, not all translation will be perfect and sometimes there will be mistakes or mistranslations. If people come across incorrect or inappropriate translations, they can let us know about them and we’ll be happy to fix them as soon as possible.”
----讀Bing 等作的機械翻譯,常常會令人莞爾:威士忌落入眼鏡

“The light music of whisky falling into glasses made an agreeable interlude.”
― James Joyce, Dubliners
"威士卡落入眼鏡輕快的音樂作出一個令人愉快的小插曲"。
― ― James 喬伊絲,都柏林人 》

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