!bookworms !classics all the talk today on @kaamrev post about Rangz of Power reminded me what a language nerd Tolkien was, he was particularly fascinated with the Finnish language and mythology which he would use as a base for Quenya.
He went as far as to learn enough finnish to read the darn Kalevala in the original.
Which brings me to translations. Translating is tricky, especially for poetry or books which are famous for their prose because part of their beauty is lost, them there's the issue of "word-by-word" translation or whether to convey the general idea of the text.
What are some books you guys find "untranslatable" so to speak?which translated works you find good and what are some terrible translations you came across?
Shakespeare doesn't translate well in other languages, same with Cervantes and Camões when is translated to English but some annotated translations of Don Quixote do the original justice. I see no point of reading Moby Peepee or Lolita in Portuguese either, lot's of what make those books special will be lost.
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Only the phonology for Quenya, the actual language has not etymological relation.
He took the rest from various European and Semitic languages but really straight up invented most words based on what he thought sounded cool.
You do find a few easter eggs though, like Atan/Atani=Man/Men in Quenya and Adan/Edain = Man/Men in Sindarin to Adám = Man in Biblical Hebrew or Eä = All which is and 'ehye (אֶהְיֶה fricking sounds like Eä) which means "I Am" as stated by God to Moses.
Or nar being fire in Quenya and in Arabic.
And certain place names like Tol Eressä being similar to things like Tell Meggido, not equivalent but copying the format. And also things like the Rohirrim or Galadrim sharing the Hebrew method of denoting groups of people.
Sindarin was Welsh and other Celtic languages but the phonology is also shared by Spanish.
Another interesting fact is that he glossed most of the proper and place names from Westron into English making Rohirric sound like Saxons, Dwarves like Scandinavians (Oakenshield/Eikinskjaldi), Hobbits like English and so on. Samwise Gamgee's real name is Banazir Galpsi
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