The name 'Gollum'

[Rumble]

Someone recently told me that Gollum is Elvish for 'friend'. Is this true? It would certainly put a rather strange twist on the book.

[Fat middle]

AFAIK, the elvish word for "friend" is "mellon". i don't think Gollum has other meanings...

[Eruve]

Gollum acquired this particular nickname because he had a habit of making a noise in his throat that sounded like "gollum". That's the only meaning I know of for Gollum. Fat Middle is right about the Elvish word for friend.

[Darth Tater]

Gollum's name has no real meaning. He is called Gollum because of a gglllllmmmm sorta sound he makes in the back of his throat. Try saying Gollum without the vowels and make the noise come from the back of your throat, it's a sorta creapy, well, gollumish noise.

[noldo]

In the Finnish translation Gollum let out this noice "kllnnnk" and was therefor called "Klonkku".

Just an example that it shouldn't mean a thing. In the translation, all the names with Elvish or other Middle-Earth language origins (Elrond, Khazad-dum) are kept untouched.

[Shanamir Duntak]

Same thing in french, They kept Gollum tought. But names like Goldberry were translated to "Baie d'or"...And Baggins is "Sacquet" (Bag in french is Sac, so if you consider baggins derived from bag then Sacquet is derived from Sac. At least that's what I think the translator did).

By the way the french translation is VERY good

[noldo]

:lol:

I myself like the Finnish translation: Kultamarja for Goldberry and Reppuli for Baggins. :D

[Eruve]

Shanamir, just a question. Have you ever read LOTR in English? I've tried to read the French translation and I didn't find it very goo at all. I noticed mistakes and places where the translator seemed to have misunderstood the English words... I really recommend you read the original at some point if you already haven't. If you think the French version's godd, just wait! :)

[Shanamir Duntak]

Damn... got caught :p
No, I didn't read the english version. In fact, the last time I read LOTR was about 2 or 3 years ago, and then I didn't considered I possessed the required skills.

But I did read a lot of translated books and I can tell you most translations are bad or worse.

Another problem would now be to find an english version (funds are running low :( )

[noldo]

I'll start on the English version right after Harry Potter and the UT.

[Fat middle]

one of the first things i have to thanked Entmoot is that it moves me to read LOTR in English. Now i have read it twice and once the Sil.

and i also thought the Spanish translation was good ;)

[Eruve]

Shanamir, there's always the library. I'm sure there's English books in your local library. I live in a very French community and we have English fiction, even LOTR and Sil... Anyway it's not so hard on the wallet that way.

[Darth Tater]

They changed names in the translations? That's awefull.

[Shanamir Duntak]

Eruve
Sadly, the library in my city is just 5 years old and they don't have many books in english yet (No LOTR as far as I know) Or else I would already have reserved it.

Tater
Tought so the first time... Now I find them not so bad. Of course it's not the original, but part of the story is based on names, (Like when Frodo calls himself [Idontknowitinenglishbutinfrenchit's"Souscolline"]at bree :p Or when Aragorn is called "Strider"... Wouldn't have understood when I read it a 12 years old.

[Fat middle]

Underhill is that name. :)

Tater: it was Tokien himself who made the instructions for translation: what names shoud be kept as in the original and what should be translated and how.

in fact the English version is also a translation fronm Westron ;)

[noldo]

I think the translated names give this nice homy feel to the book. It would different if the names were in English.

[arynetrek]

as FM already pointed out, Tolkien Anglicized & translated the names, so translatign some of them doesn't seem that bad - particularly things like "baggins" or "gollum." besides, the hobbit-names are all translations, aren't they? but IMO, names like Aragorn or Glorfindel (that weren't derived fro m other words or sounds) shouldn't be touched. although someone pointed out that in Heberew there's no way to write some of the more Elvish names...

aryne *

[emilsson]

I´ve read LOTR and Silmarillion in both Swedish and English. The Swedish translation is good and the translation of names work. There are just two things that irritates me, one is a mistake in the text and the other is that in Swedish Tolkien´s use of language is lost. The Swedish text does not have the same feeling as the English one.

[Wizard of the Secret Fire]

I can agree about the Silmarillion, but I do not like the translation of the LotR

Here is a part I copied from my Board and site about Tolkien and the translator.

The Swedish translation of the Lord of the Rings is very bad. If is full of errors. Some are very large. Tolkien did not like the translation (or Ohlmarks) and I and many others in Sweden hope that a new translation will be made.

Example of an error: Instead of Eowyn, Merry kills the Which-King with the sword between the crown and the body! He wrote he instead of she.

Here are wome examples of what Tolkien thought about the Swedish translator and his translation of the Lord of the Rings:

Tolkien wrote: "Ohlmarks is a very vain man (as I discovered in our correspondence), preferring his own fancy to facts, and very ready to pretend to knowledge which he does not possess."

Tolkien about Ohlmarks and the translation:

"Sweden. The enclosure that you brought from Almqvist &c. was both puzzling and irritating. A letter in Swedish from fil. dr. Åke Ohlmarks, and a huge list (9 pages foolscap) of names in the L.R. which he had altered. I hope that my inadequate knowledge of Swedish - no better than my kn. of Dutch, but I possess a v. much better Dutch dictionary! - tends to exaggerate the impression I received. The impression remains, nonetheless, that Dr Ohlmarks is a conceited person, less competent than charming Max Schuchart, though he thinks much better of himself. In the course of his letter he lectures me on the character of the Swedish language and its antipathy to borrowing foreign words (a matter which seems beside the point), a procedure made all the more ridiculous by the language of his letter, more than 1/3 of which consists of 'loan-words' from German, French and Latin: thriller-genre being a good specimen of good old pure Swedish.
I find this procedure puzzling, because the letter and the list seem totally pointless unless my opinion and criticism is invited. But if this is its object, then surely the timing is both unpractical and impolite, presented together with a pistol: 'we are going to start the composition now'. Neither is my convenience consulted: the communication comes out of the blue in the second most busy academic week of the year. I have had to sit up far into the night even to survey the list. Conceding the legitimacy or necessity of translation (which I do not, except in a limited degree), the translation does not seem to me to exhibit much skill, and contains a fair number of positive errors.* Even if excusable, in view of the difficulty of the material, I think this regrettable, & they could have been avoided by earlier consultation. It seems to me fairly evident that Dr. O. has stumbled along dealing with things as he came to them, without much care for the future or co-ordination, and that he has not read the Appendices at all, in watch he would have found many answers .....
I do hope that it can be arranged, if and when any further translations are negotiated, that I should be consulted at an early stage - without frightening a shy bird off the eggs. After all, I charge nothing, and can save a translator a good deal of time and puzzling; and if consulted at an early stage my remarks will appear far less in the light of peevish criticisms.

*For example: Ford of Bruinen = Björnavad! Archet = Gamleby (Old Village) (a mere guess, I suppose, from 'archaic'?) Mountains of Lune (Ered Luin) = Månbergen (Moon-mountains); Gladden Fields (in spite of descr. in 1. 62) = Ljusa slätterna (Bright plains), & so on."

Tolkien about another part of the translation:

"In translating vol. i p.12, 'they seldom wore shoes, since their feet had though leathery soles and were clad in a thick curling hair, much like the hair of their heads', he read the text as'. . . their feet had thick feathery soles, and they were clad in a thick curling hair. . .'and so produces in his Introduction a picture of hobbits whose outdoor garb was of matted hair, while under their feet they had solid feather-cushion treads! This is made doubly absurd, since it occurs in a passage where he is suggesting that the hobbits are modelled on the inhabitants of the idyllic suburb of Headington."

In addition, Ohlmarks also created his own stories about tolkien's life. He also thought that he knew the meaning of things that he had no sufficent knowledge about.

Ohlmarks about Tolkien: "There are reminiscences of journeys on foot in his own youth up into the Welsh border-region."

Tolkien answered: "As Bilbo said to the dwarves, he seems to know as much of my private pantries as I do myself. Or pretends to. I never walked in Wales or the marches in my youth. Why should I be made an object of fiction while still alive?"

Ohlmarks: "The professor began by telling tales about it [Middle-earth] to his children, then to his grandchildren; and they were fascinated and clamoured for more and still more. One can clearly see before one the fireside evenings in the peaceful villa out at Sandfield Road in Headington near Oxford .... with the Barrowdowns or Headington Hills in the rear and the Misty Mountains or the 560 feet high Shotover in the background."

Tolkien answered: "!!This is such outrageous nonsense that I should suspect mockery, if I did not observe that O. is ever ready to assume intimate knowledge that he has not got. I have only two grandchildren. One 18 who first heard of the books 5 years ago. The other is 2. The book was written before I moved to Headington, which has no hills, but is on a shoulder (as it were) of Shotover."

Ohlmarks: "One of his most important writings, published in 1953, also treats of another famous homecoming, 'The Homecoming of Beorhtnot, [sic] Beorthhelm's son.'"

Tolkien: "Coming home dead without a head (as Beorhtnoth did) is not very delightful. But this is spoof. O. knows nothing about Beorhtnoth, or his homecoming (never mentioned till I wrote a poem about it) and he has not seen the poem. I do not blame him, except for writing as if he knew."

My favourite: :lol:

Ohlmarks: "The Ring is in a certain way 'der Nibelungen Ring'. . . . "

Tolkien: "Both rings were round, and there the resemblance ceases."


If you want to know more about the Swedish translation, read here (to large to copy to this board and it is in Swedish, sorry). URL:www.crosswinds.net/~theol...nalys.html (http://www.crosswinds.net/~theoldforest/svenska/tolkien/svtranslate/translateanalys.html)

[Fat middle]

wow!! i will never said again that the Spanish translation is no good ;)

that man is/was a terrorist!! :D

[anduin]

What does, "der Nibelungen" mean?

[Eruve]

I'm not sure, but I think it's a reference to the legends that Wagner based several operas on.

[Legolas]

Yes; it was referring to, if I am correct, The Ring, the opera by Wagner as Eruve said.

What Tolkien said there was very interesting; he has something of the personality that I thought he might have.

By the way, Wizard of the Secret Fire, I was wondering: have you ever gone by the name Gandalf the Grey, online anywhere? :)


Legolas

[Wizard of the Secret Fire]

No, I have never used Gandalf the Grey or even Gandalf :) .

Btw,

First, Ohlmarks admired Tolkien and his books, and wrote things like:

I am grateful for having had the opportunity of spreading the word about one of the greatest authors and most creative minds of our time.28


Then he changed, after trouble with the foreword, Tolkien societys in Sweden and Humphrey Carpenter. He wrote the book Tolkien and the Black Magic!!! (ridiculous book)

He never believed that Tolkien wrote LotR!

... because it could definitely not be him [Tolkien]. If it were, the entire academic exercise of "philological determinance of authorship" would be worthless. ... there are fundamental discrepancies in style, vocabulary, syntax, narrative technique, story-telling, visionary power - everything.41

The first book [Book 1 of LOTR] is poor rubbish for children and tells almost exclusively of a lengthy, tiresome birthday party among the 'creatures' called hobbits... These hobbits... make pretty boring reading... Tolkien invented his hobbits in a miserably bad fairy-story as early as 1937 ... [LOTR] is the naive folk-tale, painted in black and white, at its worst... 25

Tolkien himself admired Hitler deeply. The societies devote their time to warlike exercises, it is just like the SS-system29

... the cartoon is the only adequate form for children's stories of such low literary quality. I once spoke about JRRT in connection with the Nobel Prize. Forgive me honoured members of the Academy... I was as stupid as the poor serving-hands of the Tolkien societies...29

By the way, who is this Mr Humphrey Carpenter? ... he is not in Who's Who, not in any literary dictionary whatsoever... He does not seem to have written anything prior to this biography. He has arbitrarily been appointed by Christopher Tolkien ignoring all the more authorative literary biographers and down to the smallest detail he is dependent on his benefactor and employer. To him Christopher has been able to dictate anything at whim and Carpenter has completely accepted it all...

[Eruve]

Heresy! Blasphemy! Off with his head!

[noldo]

:x :x

Is he dead?

[Fat middle]

who´s that Ohlmarks? is he well known in Sweden (i mean, apart from this affair)?

hmmm, i'm sure he's less known that Carpenter :p

[Wizard of the Secret Fire]

About Ohlmarks:

Ohlmarks, Åke (1911 - 1984) religion historian, Sweden.

Åke Joel Ohlmarks, Swedish professor of religion, skillful translator to Swedish of the Icelandic Eddas. His translation of the third part of Snorri's Edda is yet unparalleled.

For some, Ohlmarks is more known as one of several Swedish translators of the books by J. R. R. Tolkien. Ohlmarks started out enthusiastically, but his relationship to the author got rather strained after some time. Some Swedish Tolkien fans prefer other translations than those by Ohlmarks.

[Shanamir Duntak]

As you describe this guy, I easily understand why Swedish fans would prefer other translations than his.

[arynetrek]

this just makes me want to meet Tolkien even more...

aryne *

[emilsson]

I didn´t know that about Ohlmark. It does explain why some mistakes slipped through.

Now I´d like to compare his translation of the Edda with Björn Collinder's to see if it really is unparallelled.

[TrunksGT]

Hoo hah... in da boo hah!

[Bullroarer]

Paul, you high?

[Soul of the Nazghul]

How'd ya guess? When i say something wrong I screw around with the word until it sounds stupider... I got hoo hah from the Al Pacino movie... and boo hah was just cool, thus "Hoo hah in the boo hah!" was born

[Gilthalion]

And here I thought it was just a pathetic attempt at Entish!

:lol: