Reasons to study Russian, or English for that matter!

[John Dunn]

Two comments on recent discussIons.

1. Nationalistic/national.  I suppose that the haka, the alleged Maori war dance now performed by New Zealand rugby union players before international matches, is an example of 'a nationalistic dance'.  It is possible that other peformances answering to this description may be found in some of the video-clips that accompany the oeuvre of Oleg Gazmanov.   But am I the only person who thinks that 'national' in the original context doesn't sound right either?  I would assume that this a is a reference to what are normally known in English as 'folk dances'.

2. Kul'turnye cennosti.  If this indeed an infelicity, blame lies not with an airport worker, but much higher up the food chain.  This is the term used in official documents issued by the Russian customs authorities:

На вывози́мые культур́ные це́нности устано́влена прави́тельством РФ э́кспортная по́шлина в разме́ре 100 проце́нтов с оце́нки, ука́занной в свиде́тельстве Министе́рства культу́ры [Na vyvozimye kul'turnye cennosti ustanovlena pravitel'stvom RF eksportnaja poshlina v razmere 100 procentov s ocenki, ukazannoj v svidetel'stve Ministerstva kul'tury].
I recently had occasion to translate this sentence.  For what it is worth, my version was:
An export duty on valuable cultural artefacts has been fixed by the Russian government at 100% of the value indicated in the export certificate issued by the Ministry of Culture.

John Dunn.
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Olga Meerson <meersono at GEORGETOWN.EDU>
To: SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU
Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2008 18:49:10 -0500
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Reasons to study Russian, or English for that matter!

I don't know about being a foreigner in general, but for a Russian, the difference between national and nationalist(ic) is pretty clear: natsional'nye vs. natsionalistskie. As per cultural values, this is in no way a literal translation: kul'turnye tsennosti are not natsional'noe dostoianie / predmety natsional'nogo dostoianiia. No, this is merely a symptom of people becoming ever less careful about language per se, not even a calque--a projection of something normal for their own language, upon something that becomes abnormal in the target language of translation. Vvoz i vyvoz kulturnyx tsennostej zapreshchen sounds as weird in Russian as its counterpart in English: its understanding of cultural values is rather limited. The fact that a Russian working for the airport was careless linguistically in now way should tint the precision of the great Russian language as a whole :) In Russian, properly speaking, Kul'turnye tsennosti have never been the same as material'nye tsennost
i--fortunately.
o.m.

John Dunn
Honorary Research Fellow, SMLC (Slavonic Studies)
University of Glasgow, Scotland

Address:
Via Carolina Coronedi Berti 6
40137 Bologna
Italy
Tel.: +39 051/1889 8661
e-mail: J.Dunn at slavonic.arts.gla.ac.uk
johnanthony.dunn at fastwebnet.it

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