Ebonics in Russian translation?

[Robert Orr]

This one opens all sorts of issues.  As I've noted on SEELANGS, I'm
currently working my way through Russian versions of the Flashman series.
Flash for Freedom (Flesh bez kozyrej; set in 1848-1849) may be of great
interest here as it includes sporadic examples both of what might be called
"Black American dialect" and Slave Coast Pidgin. 

At first glance (I'll check further) the longest continuous passage of Black
dialect appears to be where Hermia explains to Flashman why she has been
flogged on the orders of Annette Mandeville.  "Massa" is treated as
"kollega" (declined as a feminine in -a), and verbs appear only in
infinitives ("ona prikazat Gektoru vyporot menja i ....; the distribution of
perfective and imperfective might be of interest here, e.g., "poka ja ne
terjat soznanie").

Infinitives are also mused in the shorter examples where Messalina and
Drusilla give testimony in the proceedings against the "Balliol College (a
captured slave ship)", although they use past tenses in response to
questions including these tenses.

- kem vy byli tam, v Roatane? 

 -pozalujsta, se'(ser/sir) my byli sljuxa.  

"Educated African Americans", such as Cassy and the absurd George Randolph,
are rendered in ordinary standard Russian.  

Efforts have also been made to capture the images of dialect of Mississippi
plantation owners, slave catchers, etc.

-----Original Message-----
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list
[mailto:SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of ameliede at EARTHLINK.NET
Sent: Monday, May 30, 2011 12:20 AM
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Ebonics in Russian translation?

-----Original Message-----
>From: Romy Taylor <romy at PETUHOV.COM>
>Sent: May 29, 2011 3:03 PM
>To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
>Subject: [SEELANGS] Ebonics in Russian translation?
>
>Hi Seelangs,
>
>I wonder whether linguists and others good at text analysis can give 
>their thoughts on a translation of Black dialect into Russian?
>
>The author, Wayland Rudd, was an Afr-American living in Moscow, and his 
>play is about African Americans circa 1930.  Unfortunately, I don't 
>have the original in English.  But in the Russian translation, educated 
>African Americans speak standard Russian, while the servant "Momsie" 
>speaks something like the foreign characters in an old "Tintin" book, 
>or like an old Hollywood caricature of a foreigner.
>
>
>I guess one question is: how standard was it to translate Black 
>American dialect as ungrammatical / foreigners' mistakes?
>
Many years ago I browsed through a Russian translation of Huckleberry Finn.
I remember clearly that Jim's "Who dat?" was translated "Kto tam?"
Jules Levin
Los Angeles

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