St. Crispin's Day Speech

[edmundfairfax at YAHOO.CA]

 I have a number of comments and suggestions, but to avoid an overlong reply, I will focus on only one small section at a go. So with regards to the first line only, which runs: "O, that we now had here / But one ten thousand of those men in England / That do not work today!".  This might be translated into ModE as, 'O, if only we had here ten thousand of those men in England who are not working today!'
 

 1) It seems to me that you did not render "but" = 'only'. The Gothic equivalent is 'thatainei':
 

 thatainei kwith waurda 'only say the words'
 jabai thatainei atteka wastjai is, ganisa 'if I only touch his cloak, I will be made well'
 jabai goleith thans frijonds izwarans thatainei 'if you great your friends only'
 

 'Ains' can also render English 'only/alone' but in that case it stands after the word(s) it modifies:
 

 jabai frijoth thans frijondans izwis ainans 'if you love your friends only/alone'
 

 2) You used the verb 'wisan' + dat. to render 'to have', in which case the understood object becomes the subject, and thus "one ten" should be in the nominative: 'if only there were with us ten thousand...' to give a literal transl. If you use 'haban' or 'aigan', which I would recommend, as these verbs are more commonly used to indicate possession broadly, then the accusative is called for: 'if only we had ten thousand...' Since "ten thousand" is more than one, the verb 'wisan' should likely be in the third-person plural if you use the 'wisan'+ dat. construction.
 

 3) Moreover, you have given the masc. acc. sg. form of 'ains', but I have not been able to find in either Braune/Heidermanns or Koebler any indication of what gender 'taihun' should have, so I wonder why you chose to treat the number as masc. In fact, I would drop the 'ains' altogether; cf. 'mith taihun thusundjom (Luke 14, 31). Shakespeare perhaps used "one" here for at least partly metrical reasons.
 

 4) You have not translated "now" in "that we now had here..."
 

 5) I think the simplest and most elegant solution to the problem of names is not to etymologize and then translate them, but to do what Wulfila did with the foreign names in his Biblical translation: to wit, simply render them as they are, but written according to the conventions of Gothic spelling + a Gothic inflection. Thus, "in England" becomes 'in Inglanda'.
 If you do decide to create a more antique-looking name, you may wish to know that the early Germanic languages in fact prefer to use ethnonyms as geographical names; e.g. "ana Gutthiudai" 'in Gothia' = lit. 'on (=among) the Gothic people'; OE "on Westseaxum" 'in Wessex' = lit. 'on (=among) the West-Saxons'. In this case, "in England" would likely be 'ana Anglam', given the early Latinized form "Angl(i)i".
 

 6) for "work" I would suggest you use 'waurkjan', which appears to be the more generic term; 'arbaidjan' corresponds more to 'labour, work hard, struggle':
 

 cf. kwimith nahts thanei ni manna mag waurkjan 'the night comes, when no man can work'
 

 Hope that this was of some help. I will forward more in the time to come.
 

 Edmund
 

---In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, <gothic-l at yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 Hello all! So here I have a very, very rough draft of the translated speech. I would greatly appreciate any insight you can give me to make it as correct as possible. I will also give a short explanation here of why and how I have chosen to translate some bigger topics, but will of course respond to any questions you post. First off, I will say that I tried my best to stick with the version of the English text that can be found on the wikipedia page for this speech. About half way through, I pulled in the German translation for a bit of help (just to see what words were chosen to translate it, as well as some grammar points) and while it was a major help and did influence the second half of my translation, I still did my best to stick to the English version where I could.
Second, I would like to point directly to the translations of the names. For the most part, they are Germanic in form, so I did what I could to translate them etymologically. I will leave my pitiful attempts at a couple of them as I first wrote them, and we can discuss them. Gloucester and anything ending with -ter/-cester were really hard for me, because English cester is from the OE version of Latin castra. So really I did not know where to go from there. Exeter, after much digging around, I am somewhat happy with, but the -ter (from -cester) I did not translate and simply transcribed into Gothic as -tair. Lazy? Smart? You decide! Gloucester, though, while I was able to translate "Glou-" I still had the -cester to contend with. I opted for a filler, and threw in -baurgs until we can come up with a better solution. I will say though, I am very proud of my translation of Westmoreland (Wistramaraland).
My other major problem was some prepositions and "specialty" words that connected some sentences. For fixing these, I must refer to you all.
So here it is! Please keep in mind this is a rough draft, as you tear me a new one haha.

 O, ei wesi unsis her ainana taihun þusundjos þize manne ïn Aggilalanda, þaiei himma daga ni arbaidjand.
Hvas ïst saei swa wili? Niþjis meins Wistramaraland? Ne, niþi meins feina; jabai weis dauþubljai sijaima, ganah unsaramma landa uns fraliusan; aiþþau du liban, þe fawizans mans, þe maiza wulþaus dails. Wilja gudis! Bidja þuk, usbiþ ni aljis mans. Bi guda, ni faihugairns gulþis, nih karist mik þizeei gabatnandane us mis. Ni karist mik jabai ains sik gawasjiþ ïn meinai wastjai. Swaleikos lausos waihts ni bauand ïn lustum meinaim. Aþþan frawaurhts luston sweriþos, fulls ïm maists frawaurhtais. Ne, galaubeins, niþi meins, usbiþ ni us Aggilalanda mans. Friþus gudis! Ïk ni wildedjau fraliusan wulþu swalauþ, swe anþar wair þana gamainjana briggai, .... O, usbidai ni ainana mais! Wiþrawairþo gaswikunþjai þata, Wistramaraland, ïn harjis meinis, þatei saei suqn ni aigi ana þizai gunþai, afgaggai; farþa ïs gamelida bauhtuh wairþai. Weis gadauþneima ni ïn andwairþja þis gumins saei ogi gamainein seina miþ unsis dauþnan. Sa ïst dags haitada Krispinaus dulþs. Saei ufarlibai þana dag jah gaggai haimo arniba, sah standai ufar allans þanei ains namnai þana dag jah uswagai ïna namin Krispinaus. Saei libai fram himma daga, usalþans, gibaih dulþ jeris qiþands „Gistradagis ïst airknins Krispinaus." Ïs slaupeiþ bijandzuþþan armins seinans andhuljands  wundufnjos jah qiþiþ „Þos ïk nam at dag Krispinaus." Greisistai wairos ufarmunnond, jah all ïst ufarmunnoþ, ïþ ïs gaman, miþ botom, dedins seinos. Wairþa þan namna unsara, biuhtai ïn munþa ïs swaswe waurda ïngardjono: Haimareiks sa þiudans, Bedisfairþus, Ïskatair, Waraweihs, Dalabota, Salhabaurgs, jah Glaggwabaurgs. Þo namna sijaina bi stiklam fullaim ïze friskaba gamunida. Þata spill galaisjai wair sa amala sunu seinana; jah Krispinus Krispjanus fram himma und andi fairhvaus ni wairþaina ufarmunnodai, jah gamunjaina uns. Weis fawai, weis hlasai fawai, weis hansa so broþre. Saei raihtis, himma daga bloþeiþ swe ïk, sah wairþiþ broþar meins, jah sijai ni swa hauns. Hamma daga fragibiþ gribai ïs. Aþalagumans ïn Aggilalanda ligandans badja skulun afdomjan sik þatei eis ni her weseina, aglai biþe ains qiþai waihana bi unsis at dag Krispinaus.



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