Alice translation

Sat Apr 12 01:16:04 UTC 2014

The discussion is interesting, but I think much of it is missing the point.  We’re assuming that the translation is for the purpose of putting substantive material into a Siouan language.  At this stage, any such enterprise is purely for vanity, since there are hardly any monolingual speakers left, hungry for the message of the Bible or Shakespeare or whatever, if only it could be put into their Siouan native tongue.  Even if there were, I tend to share Jimm’s nativist attitude.  Rather than inject a Western cultural corpus into Siouan, I would much rather hear and record Native stories and experience in their own native tongue.  Insofar as this is still possible, I think this is about the most important thing we can be doing.

But I suspect that the quote requested is not about the literary message, whether it came from “Alice” or anywhere else.  Rather, we are being challenged to analyze our languages’ grammar.  It is not about Alice in Wonderland.  It is about how the language goes about communicating elements of standard experience that we too easily overlook as we compile our word lists.

Alice was a Victorian-age English girl.  When she fell down the rabbit hole and sampled the mushrooms, she said: “Curiouser and curiouser.”  A modern day American girl might communicate the same message with the formula: “Well, this is really getting weird.”  Here, the same substantive message can be communicated at least two different ways in the same language without using any of the same words or grammatical devices.

In the mouths of fluent speakers, Siouan languages most likely had ways of expressing this same message.  It is not culturally specific; anybody, anywhere, might have occasion to utter it.  Lexically, we might want to check to see if we have one or more words meaning “curious”, in the sense of ‘strange’, ‘odd’, ‘weird’, or ‘contrary to expectations’.  If not, some word in the language probably got overlooked, and if we still have speakers we should search for it.

At the syntactic level, we should study how the language deals with a quality steadily increasing or decreasing.  It doesn’t have to be strangeness.  It could just as well be heat.  At the beginning of the week, it was 20 degrees Fahrenheit out.  Three days ago it was 50 degrees.  Yesterday it was 70, and today it is 90.  You are a native Siouan speaker, living 200 years ago, and you want to comment on this phenomenon.  How do you say it?  In English, we would say: “It’s getting hotter and hotter.”  But the Siouan languages didn’t have those English devices.  What devices did they have to express this sort of idea?  If we don’t know what those devices were, then we don’t know the languages we are studying and trying to preserve.

As I understand, the person asking for the translation is a linguist who is not just asking for a translation, but also a morpheme by morpheme analysis of it.  Presumably he is doing a wide survey comparison of languages and the devices they use to express this thought.  Certainly, we may have important things we need to be doing, and may not choose to volunteer an answer.  But let’s not disparage the question or the questioner.  I think the question is serious, and that making the effort to try to answer it may help us to improve our own game as well.

Best,
Rory

From: Siouan Linguistics [mailto:SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu] On Behalf Of Mcbride, Justin
Sent: Friday, April 11, 2014 4:49 PM
To: SIOUAN at LISTSERV.UNL.EDU
Subject: Re: Alice translation

Interesting discussion. I do know that Dorsey, who began his linguistic work as a Christian missionary (to the Poncas?), started an OP translation of the Gospel According to St. Mark, which appears in the microfilm reels that Mark photographed up at the National Anthropological Archives. I can't recall how far he got with it, but I remember seeing it. I also know that at my time at the Kaw Nation, a handful of people did ask me about the availability of Bible translations or portions and were disappointed to know that there were none beyond the Lord's Prayer. There was enough interest that we finally made the Lord's Prayer as told by Maude Rowe available online. Furthermore, having attended one of Father Graczyk's masses at Pryor, which was at least partially in Crow, and having been numerous times to the Hominy Friends Meeting where Osage is used on a weekly basis, I would suspect that certain Siouan language Bible translations would very much be welcome additions to those congregations. So, at least from my experience, I would respectfully suggest that there is some degree of interest for such work in these communities. Still, I would agree that I've never personally heard requests for translations of the Koran, Shakespeare, or Carroll. Frankly, I would guess that there's not enough Siouan language literacy or demand for written materials outside of class or church organizations in many of the Southern communities in Oklahoma to warrant much time spent translating these sorts of extended non-Native literary works when, as Jimm rightly says, there are probably far more pressing matters. The tribes themselves have their own stories, after all.

Peace,
-Justin

On Fri, Apr 11, 2014 at 11:19 AM, De Reuse, Willem <WillemDeReuse at my.unt.edu<mailto:WillemDeReuse at my.unt.edu>> wrote:

Interesting discussion. I did not know about Alice in Wonderland. As someone who works on Apache, I get a lot of requests for translations, as Apache is one of these "iconic" Native American languages.

One has to pick and choose, if it is short and culturally appropriate, I generally agree to it. I remember once translating a short Jewish prayer into Apache. The Apaches liked it. After all Apaches, like Jews, know something about wandering about in the desert.

Then other requests have to be nixed, like the set of "Spring Break" phrases I once was asked to translate, things like "I am so drunk", and "where is the bathroom?".

Portions of the Bible have more appeal that the other four works. I add a link to a nice example. Thanks Jimm for this.

http://iowayotoelang.nativeweb.org/pdf/christmasstory.pdf

Another great Bible story that has been used for linguistic work is the Parable of Prodigal son, which has been recorded in many more versions than the New Testament itself, and probably second in number of translations to the Lord's Prayer.   One does not have to be a Christian to appreciate this parable is an awfully good story, of almost universal appeal, except maybe to vegans!

Willem

________________________________
From: Siouan Linguistics <SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu<mailto:SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu>> on behalf of Jimm Goodtracks <jgoodtracks at GMAIL.COM<mailto:jgoodtracks at GMAIL.COM>>
Sent: Friday, April 11, 2014 10:27 AM
To: SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu<mailto:SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu>
Subject: Re: Alice translation

Dear Erik Hanson:

I cannot refute what you say below in regard to your statement that Alice in Wonderland, the Bible, Koran and Shakespeare are the most translated and published in various languages of the world.  If you say so, I will take it as so on face value.  However, I assure you that in the last 115 years here in Indian Country, USA, there has been no interest in these four works of literature on the part of an member of the indigenous communities of the Northern and Southern Plains that represent the Siouan, Caddoan and other indigenous languages families.

As such, for my part, I have not available time to spend in satisfying someone’s whims to translate some phrase or work of no consequence to the language  communities just for the hell of it, i.e., the sake of making a translation.  Such tasks can be given to the idle hands of someone who has nothing better to do with their time.

Sincerely,
Jimm G. Goodtracks
Jimm G. Goodtracks
Báxoje Jiwére Language Project
PO Box 55
Tecumseh, KS 66542

Ukínadheda wawáŋarana, ich^é nahá, injé etáwe waróxiñeda adáñešdan – wógiñi kigróšige íthgare ke.
“In the middle of resisting, the language got caught, only showing her face in ceremony, like she’s ashamed of her scars.”
(www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FUgDutdauQ&feature=share<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FUgDutdauQ&feature=share>

-----Original Message-----
From: Erik Hanson
Sent: Friday, April 11, 2014 9:54 AM
To: Jimm Goodtracks
Subject: Alice translation

Hello:

"Alice" is one of the standards that translators deal with and think about. It's the fourth most quoted work in history (after the Bible, Koran,  and the complete works of Shakespeare) and the only one of the four both secular and of a manageable size. It has already been translated and published into 125 languages, back to the 1860s and probably a few more unpublished. There is no insult to be read into a desire for a short bit, at least, to be rendered into any/every language. I do question the merits of that particular bit.

Regards, Erik

Sent from my iPhone, please forgive typos and brevity.

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