gender in translation

[Alina Israeli]

The doublet жираф ‒ жирафа is rare and fortunate.
When I want to praise my dog I often say "какой ты умный  
собак" with the fear that my kids would hear me and pick up the  
neologism instead of the correct one. Even though Russia has also  
masculine пёс, it has a different connotation and I cannot use it  
on my rather small bichon frisé.

I think it's a good idea to create in fiction gender specific variants.

AI

On Jul 28, 2010, at 2:16 AM, Robert Orr wrote:

> http://www.litportal.ru/genre6/author3279/read/page/1/book15045.html
>
>
> I recently found this version of C.S. Lewis "the Last Battle"  on  
> line.
> Shift, the Ape, is referred to as "обезьян", in order to  
> preserve the gender
> in the original text. "обезьян", however, seems to be a very  
> rare  (I
> hesitate to say "invented") form.
>
> Comments?
>
>

Alina Israeli
Associate Professor of Russian
LFS, American University
4400 Massachusetts Ave.
Washington DC 20016
(202) 885-2387 	fax (202) 885-1076
aisrael at american.edu





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