piątek, 3 kwietnia 2015

Ferdydurke - translation problems


Gombrowicz's language is very difficult because the Polish author used several types of idiomatic Polish-colloquial, the language of Polish peasants and the literary language. Difficult words to translate is Polish exclamations like "Jakże!". It was trasnlated by Danuta Borchardt as "Oh, sure!". The same problem is with the word "onegdaj" as "once" and "chłystek" like "a juvenile". Another problem is the Polish prefix "niedo" which was trasnlated as "not quite" - "niedoświadek ludzi niedoludzkich" as "the little not-quite world of the not-quite humans".
Moreover, the use of diminutives is very pervalent in Polish. Gombrowicz used them in the service of the ridiculous. The sentence "noga stała się nóżką, ręka - rączką, istota - stotką, dzieło - dziełkiem, ciało - ciałkiem" was translated by Danuta as "my leg became a little leg, my hand - a little hand, my persona - a little persona, my being - a little being, my oeuvre - a little oeuvre." Another problem is inversion which in Polish appears and changes style. As an example is "Słowacki wielkim poetą był" - Danuta, in order to make it more similar to the Polish original, translated it as "Because Słowacki - oh, what a great poet he was". The novel is really challenge for translators.




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