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HFQ Offical Snippet #4

This fascinating series is a combination of historical seafaring, swashbuckling adventure, and high technological science-fiction. Join us in a discussion!
Re: HFQ Offical Snippet #4
Post by n7axw   » Thu Nov 06, 2014 1:13 am

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No. The sisters haven't produced a translation of the journal, to say nothing of a faithful translation.

Here is the thing. In order to translate competently, you have to go about it one of two ways. Far and the way the best method would be to live in the culture whose language you are seeking to learn. That way you would be picking up the cultural idiom and philosophical nuances as well as the vocabulary and grammar of the language and would avoid many of things that trip up many attempts at translation.

The second way is through exhaustive study. I understand that these days you have such programs as Rosetta Stone. I am not sure how far these programs can take you. Back when I did it, it was mostly done by rehearsal and reading material that became increasingly difficult as your reading skills improved. Our goal was to be able to read classical literature as well as at least rudimentary translation of the biblical languages.

Let me try to illustrate the problem. Most of us have probably read the King James Bible and/or Shakespeare in the idiom of the time. All of the thees and thous and other peculiarities can make it rough going. But we can do it...or so we think. In reality we lose about 20% of the meaning because both vocabulary and grammar have shifted to the point where it is different in our time than it was in 1602. What is really tricky is that we can think that we are getting it. And even more fun would be trying Chaucer which is older yet.

That very problem is compounded many times over when you are dealing with an altogether different language. Now consider the problem that the sisters would face. Not only is the language different, but human culture on Safehold has been evolving away from the original template for a minimum of 750 years. And no Rosetta Stone software for the sisters.

So...do they have a translation? Nope. No way.

Don
When any group seeks political power in God's name, both religion and politics are instantly corrupted.
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Re: HFQ Offical Snippet #4
Post by AncientMariner   » Thu Nov 06, 2014 2:54 am

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Hi Don,

Just to be clear, we are in complete agreement. For the reasons you and I have posted, I don't believe they have a viable translation. Although if they did... then why would Aivah lie about it? That was just a hypothetical question, which I should have made clearer...

AM


n7axw wrote:No. The sisters haven't produced a translation of the journal, to say nothing of a faithful translation.

Here is the thing. In order to translate competently, you have to go about it one of two ways. Far and the way the best method would be to live in the culture whose language you are seeking to learn. That way you would be picking up the cultural idiom and philosophical nuances as well as the vocabulary and grammar of the language and would avoid many of things that trip up many attempts at translation.

The second way is through exhaustive study. I understand that these days you have such programs as Rosetta Stone. I am not sure how far these programs can take you. Back when I did it, it was mostly done by rehearsal and reading material that became increasingly difficult as your reading skills improved. Our goal was to be able to read classical literature as well as at least rudimentary translation of the biblical languages.

Let me try to illustrate the problem. Most of us have probably read the King James Bible and/or Shakespeare in the idiom of the time. All of the thees and thous and other peculiarities can make it rough going. But we can do it...or so we think. In reality we lose about 20% of the meaning because both vocabulary and grammar have shifted to the point where it is different in our time than it was in 1602. What is really tricky is that we can think that we are getting it. And even more fun would be trying Chaucer which is older yet.

That very problem is compounded many times over when you are dealing with an altogether different language. Now consider the problem that the sisters would face. Not only is the language different, but human culture on Safehold has been evolving away from the original template for a minimum of 750 years. And no Rosetta Stone software for the sisters.

So...do they have a translation? Nope. No way.

Don
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Re: HFQ Offical Snippet #4
Post by n7axw   » Thu Nov 06, 2014 12:32 pm

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I see Nynian as being very truthful with Merlin. I know that she has been into covert stuff, spying and all round skulldudgery, but she has decided Merlin is on her side.

Don
When any group seeks political power in God's name, both religion and politics are instantly corrupted.
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Re: HFQ Offical Snippet #4
Post by Howard T. Map-addict   » Thu Nov 06, 2014 1:05 pm

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AncientMariner wrote:at bottom.

phillies wrote:
(Howard True Map-addict notices:
It was Ed Thomas who wrote this attempt at Spanish.
What Phillies had written was two posts above it.
HTM)

Thought I'd have some fun with this...
OTOH: Si Aivah realmente no sabe nada acerca la secciones en español, podemos discutir si hemos cogida el autor con las manos 
First problem is how do you pronounce it? Thought I'd give it a try though and I know/knew spanish.
Let's see now - Si (sye, see, sih ? why “iff”) Aivah (!! name)
realmente (! safehold doesn't pronounce each letter, the ray ahl might be misprononced to reel which could be connected to real and possibly to really)
no ( !! negative, but why would you think there'd be a straight carryover?)
sabe (sayb, sabee. Sahb? Verb saber has no english carryover)
nada ( nayday, nahday no caryover) acerca (knock yourself out!! no connection to “about”)
la, las ( babytalk, why would you think of this as an article?)
secciones ( Ah Ha – sounds like secshuns, or maybe sesshuns or seasons?)
en (ean, ehn? In is a stretch) español (ah ha, but how do they know tilda adds silent y?)
podemos ( no english carryover and how would we know it's 1st person plural )
discutir (??) si (see above) hemos (what's a hemmoh plural )
cogida el autor ( owter, awter, author?!) con las (see above) manos
manos ( maynose, mahnose, manose – mayonaise? Big stretch to manual)


Ancient Mariner replied:

EdThomas: Interesting analysis... I really enjoyed it!

Phillies: is it safe to assume your Spanish section came out out of Google Translate or something similar? I ask because I see some typical automated translation problems in the section.
[snip - htm]
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Re: HFQ Offical Snippet #4
Post by AncientMariner   » Thu Nov 06, 2014 3:27 pm

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Glowfish wrote:Ya dejen de masacrar mi hermoso idioma, si necesitan una traducción basta con preguntarme por medio de un mensaje privado. :evil: :evil: :evil:


De acuerdo. No hay un lenguaje mejor. 8-)
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Re: HFQ Offical Snippet #4
Post by lyonheart   » Fri Nov 07, 2014 12:43 am

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Hi AncientMariner,

This has been a fascinating thread extension, thanks to you and Anwi, so kudos to both of you.

If we're lucky we have only a 5day to wait for the next snippet. ;)

It's so hard!

L


AncientMariner wrote:Hi anwi,

I don't know about your Spanish, but you have an excellent grasp of grammar :D

I enjoyed your analysis, and I certainly agree that it is quite possible the SSK deciphered the journal. I still believe without a basic knowledge of even the existence of other languages, doing so would have been extremely difficult.

However, what do we know? We know that Nynian said that they hadn't deciphered it. So how do we explain this... there are various possible explanations:

1) The SSK have translated, but Nynian did not want Merlin to know this. It could be she doesn't completely trust him, or she is testing to see how much she knows; or she wants to see what he says the documents say, and if it jives with their translation.

or they haven't translated it because:
2) reasons I stated earlier, it's just too difficult without knowledge of other languages, phrases and expressions etc.
3) The documents are top secret and very few people have seen them. They didn't have teams of linguists working on it; only individuals who may or may not have had the required skills to pull this off.
4) RFC says so! ;)

Anyway, I will be very curious to see how this all works out. Only a little while longer to the next book, right? :evil:
Any snippet or post from RFC is good if not great!
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Re: HFQ Offical Snippet #4
Post by AncientMariner   » Fri Nov 07, 2014 12:03 pm

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Thanks Lyonheart!

lyonheart wrote:Hi AncientMariner,

This has been a fascinating thread extension, thanks to you and Anwi, so kudos to both of you.

If we're lucky we have only a 5day to wait for the next snippet. ;)

It's so hard!

L
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Re: HFQ Offical Snippet #4
Post by anwi   » Sat Nov 08, 2014 6:40 am

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Hi, more below.

AncientMariner wrote:Hi anwi,
I enjoyed your analysis, and I certainly agree that it is quite possible the SSK deciphered the journal. I still believe without a basic knowledge of even the existence of other languages, doing so would have been extremely difficult.


Aivah has told Merlin that Khody specifically states those sections are written in "Español" and that it's another language. That should suffice for starting the process.

AncientMariner wrote:However, what do we know? We know that Nynian said that they hadn't deciphered it. So how do we explain this... there are various possible explanations:
1) The SSK have translated, but Nynian did not want Merlin to know this. (snip)
or they haven't translated it because:
(snip)
3) The documents are top secret and very few people have seen them. They didn't have teams of linguists working on it; only individuals who may or may not have had the required skills to pull this off.
(snip)


As I read things there would have to be extraordinary circumstances to prevent them (or even Aivah) from figuring out most of the content. You don't have to be a grammatician or a linguist for that, it's just a question of hard work. Moreover, the incentives for the Sisterhood should be there: why would they decide to not know the thoughts of their patron saint? I quite expect (and Aivah hints at that) that there are quite some discussions about (and factions on) what specific statements by Khody are really meaning. But them knowing nothing, I don't buy into that.

n7axw wrote:No. The sisters haven't produced a translation of the journal, to say nothing of a faithful translation.


Well, I think that they don't have a faithful translation, but I think they have several translations with a varying degree of accuracy.
Apart from the reasons why this is perfectly possible consider as well why, out of several likely possibilities (Chinese, Russian, Arabic, Welsh ;),... ), RFC decided to take Spanish.
If he'd taken one of the above chances of a translation actually were zero. You need a Rosetta stone for that, good luck with finding one. But he didn't. And as much as I grapple with Spanish there are few languages where arriving at an understanding with the means of Safeholdians is easier than Spanish. It might work more easily with Dutch and possibly Norwegian and Swedish, but even there I'm not so sure. French and German would actually be harder to solve than Spanish while Italian might be on the same level, I guess.

That reinforces my belief that Aivah's testing Merlin. As to why: That depends on the content of the Spanish sections. She has been probing for the extra-Safeholdian origin of mankind (Khody would have stated that clearly only in Spanish). Depending on where her preferences lie (Langhorne vs. Shanwei vs. ?) she could fear Merlin's associated with the "wrong" faction. This is not necessarily a contradiction to identifying him as an ally in the current fight against the Go4.

As an aside: If the Sisterhood arrived at translations they way I assume that could lead to interesting conclusions. As Spanish was written by a saint near to the angels perhaps he was writing in a more godly language than common people. This, in turn, was derived from a "lingua dei" reserved to communication of god with his archangels. The common language (English, unfortunately) was more watered down by the uncouth speech of sinners. Another sign of the fallen nature of man. ;)
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Re: HFQ Offical Snippet #4
Post by Randomiser   » Sat Nov 08, 2014 5:07 pm

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Since Aivah is seeking a favour which means a lot to her and given the acknowledged dangers if they don't end up trusting each other, lying to Merlin to create some kind of cutesy test seems awfully stupid to me. And if there is one thing Nynian isn't, it's stupid
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Re: HFQ Offical Snippet #4
Post by n7axw   » Sat Nov 08, 2014 9:05 pm

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Randomiser wrote:Since Aivah is seeking a favour which means a lot to her and given the acknowledged dangers if they don't end up trusting each other, lying to Merlin to create some kind of cutesy test seems awfully stupid to me. And if there is one thing Nynian isn't, it's stupid


I whole heartedly agree. Laying aside the high improbability of the sisters coming up with a translation, the notion of Nynian "testing" Merlin simply doesn't square with what we know of her character. She has already vetted Merlin to her own satisfaction and come out into the open with her story. It now remains to be seen if Merlin and the inner circle can decide they trust Nynian.

Don
When any group seeks political power in God's name, both religion and politics are instantly corrupted.
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