At the turn of the year, this is the second article in a series celebrating the 70th anniversary of the publication of Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” (1954 – 1955).
Attercop (public domain image)
In a previous article, Normalising translation in film, we discussed flattening in film translation. Flattening refers to the process of simplifying or reducing the complexity of the original text in translation. This can involve removing cultural nuances, idiomatic expressions, or stylistic elements to make the translation more straightforward and easier to understand. It is similar to internationalisation, the process of removing idiosyncracies from an original text, and domestication, the adaptation of a translation to make it more familiar to the target audience. While this can make a text more accessible, it can also result in a loss of the richness and depth of the original text. This notion is most often discussed with reference to literary and audiovisual translation, that is, the translation of aesthetic texts. And in this context it is often accepted that most translations are flatter than the corresponding original text (see Berman 1985).
How could it be otherwise? Translators, however, are often resourceful. In this article we consider the translation of texts that stretch translators to the limit: Hemingway’s interlingual English, interpreting in general, Proust and Tolkien.
Interlingual strangeness in Hemingway
Strange literary texts are almost inevitably flattened in translation, it would seem. Consider the foreignised dialogue in For whom the bell tolls, Hemingway’s Spanish Civil War novel. Throughout this work, Hemingway resorts to English dialogue that mimics Spanish grammar, presumably to give us a “flavour” of Spanish expressions (See Davis, 2023). Taking examples from the opening dialogue, we read
“That is simple,” the old man said. “From where we are going, it will all be downhill to the bridge. But now we must climb a little in seriousness to get there. Are you hungry?”
“Yes,” the young man said. “But we will eat later. How are you called? I have forgotten.”
Here “in seriousness” could be considered a literal translation of “en serio”. It hardly makes sense in English. A more typical English expression might be “we must climb a bit to get there”, with characteristic understatement. Then again, the strange expression “How are you called?” mimics “¿Cómo te llamas?” in Spanish. The effect on the reader of such verbal acrobatics is impossible to gauge. Some readers might appreciate it, others will find it annoying.
For the purposes of our discussion here, however, the question is how such texts are translated into Spanish or third languages. Consider the translation by Garibay:
—Eso es facil —explicó el viejo—. Desde el lugar en que lo ocultaremos, hasta el puente, se va siempre en descenso, pero para llegar allí tendremos que trepar de firme. ¿Tienes hambre?
—Sí—respondió el joven—. Pero comeremos más tarde. ¿Cómo te llamas? Se me ha olvidado.
In this translation there is no relic of Hemingway’s strange English.
What about in Paul Baudisch’s translation into German? Perhaps another Germanic language could deploy an interlingual discourse similar to the English original.
»Das ist einfach«, sagte der Alte. »Wenn wir erst mal an Ort und Stelle sind, geht’s bis zur Brücke immerzu bergab. Aber jetzt müssen wir erst noch ein bißchen klettern, um hinzukommen. Bist du hungrig?«
»Ja«, sagte der junge Mann. »Aber wir werden später essen. Wie heißt du? Ich habe es vergessen.«
Here “Wie heißt du?” is standard German. A literal back-translation into English of “Aber jetzt müssen wir erst noch ein bißchen klettern, um hinzukommen.” might be “But now we must first still climb a bit to get there.” The expression “ein bißchen” is unmarked in German and in no way matches “in seriousness” in English. In other words, the translation is natural German. All the strangeness of Hemingway’s original has been erased, or “flattened” as we have called it.
Simplification in interpreting
In a different order of things, because of time constraints and other performance-related issues, interpreters often resort to simplification, as a performance strategy under extreme pressure. Grammatical flattening is a common feature of interpreted speeches. It is as if the interpreter is tidying up the original. Roderick Jones (2014) gives the following advice to interpreters:
Don’t start speaking until you know you can complete a grammatical sentence. Any sentence, no matter how short, but you must be able to finish a sentence.
In other words. although the speaker may ramble in incomplete sentences, the interpreter should not. Although not usually included in discussions of flattening, falling outside the field of literary translation, we consider it an analogous process. Defective grammar in translation or interpreting could be considered erroneous by the target audience, rather than a good match for the original text. In general, therefore, translators and interpreters seek to create fluent, standardised text.
Enriching in translation
However, there are also many instances of enriched translation. This notion is often related to Venuti’s concept of foreignisation (Venuti, 2017), reminding us that we are reading a subordinate text, rather than an original.
An often-cited example of a translation considered richer than the original is Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time (À la recherche du temps perdu) translated into English by C.K. Scott Moncrieff. Moncrieff’s version, titled Remembrance of Things Past, is often regarded as more poetic and literary than the original French text.
For example, Moncrieff’s choice of “Remembrance of Things Past” as the title enriches the original’s simpler focus on “searching for lost time.” Moncrieff’s title alludes to Shakespeare’s Sonnet 30, adding an intertextual layer that ties Proust’s themes to broader literary traditions. Similarly, throughout the text, while the original French is more straightforward in tone, Moncrieff’s English translation is more sophisticated. This approach has been both celebrated for its beauty and criticised for straying too far from Proust’s precise style (see Carter, 2013).
Flattening in translations of The Lord of the Rings
On a previous occasion in Tradiling we have discussed the translation of proper names in Tolkien’s works. In his published writings Tolkien was prone to coining new words and rescuing archaic ones; some of his creations are now in general use. The expressions below from The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit are examples of Tolkien’s lexical innovation [1]. How do translators deal with these eye-catching items? Do they match Tolkien’s creativity? Or do they flatten the text?
| English | Spanish [2] | Catalan [3] |
| First of all, to tell you that I am immensely fond of you all, and that eleventy-one years is too short a time to live among such excellent and admirable hobbits. | En primer lugar, para poder decirles lo mucho que los quiero y lo breves que son ciento once años entre hobbits tan maravillosos y admirables. | En primer lloc per dir-vos a tots que estic molt i molt orgullós [4] de tots vosaltres, i que cent onze anys és un temps massa curt per viure entre hòbbits tan excel·lents i admirables. |
| What had it got in its pocketses? | ¿Qué tenía en los bolsillos? | Què tenia això en les seves butxaquesss? |
| but in the waybread of the Elves he found all the sustenance that he needed | pero en el pan del camino de los elfos, encontraba toda la sustancia que podía necesitar | però en el pa-de-viatge dels elfs trobava tot l’aliment que li calia |
| there were one or two old mathoms of forgotten uses | había uno o dos viejos mathoms de uso olvidado | hi havia una o dues dròmines, de funció ja oblidada |
| There are no words left to express his staggerment | No hay palabras que alcancen a expresar ese asombro abrumador | No queden paraules per expressar el seu esbalaïment |
| Tomnoddy of course is insulting to anybody | Tontona es para cualquiera un insulto inadmisible | botiflera és un insult per a qualsevol |
| no spider has ever liked being called Attercop | ninguna araña había sido llamada Venenosa | a cap aranya no li ha agradat mai que li diguessin aranyarro |
- The seven expressions we cover are cited, among many others, in the glossary of the Digital Tolkien Project.
- The Spanish translation is by Manuel Figueroa (El hobbit), and Lluis Domènech and Matilde Horne (El Señor de los Anillos).
- The Catalan translation is by Francesc Parcerisas.
- “orgullós” (proud) is a strange translation of “fond”.
Eleventy-one suggests the whimsical eccentricity of Bilbo. Neither translation matches it.
Pocketses is a typical reduplicated plural in Gollum’s ideolect. Along with his use of third person pronouns (it or they) to refer to any subject, even to himself, this reflects Gollum’s disturbed obsessive personality. The Spanish translation does not match any of this but the Catalan translation features its own defective syntax and plural form.
Waybread is a natural compound noun in English. Both the Spanish and Catalan texts contain matching, if rather more artificial, coinages.
Mathoms is explained in the text itself. The Spanish translation uses Tolkien’s word but in Catalan we have dròmines, an invention suggesting andròmines, a Catalan word for discarded household items. The Catalan word seems to capture the notion of hobbits hoarding useless items. Bravo, the translator!
Staggerment follows the same morphology as astonishment and has a similar meaning. Neither the Catalan nor the Spanish text use a similarly eye-catching expression here.
Tomnoddy is a quaint, playful insult meaning stupid. The Spanish version matches this, though less playfully. The Catalan version, meaning traitor, is just an insult.
Attercop comes from an old English word meaning poison (atter) + head (cop), referring to spiders, and sounds like an old-fashioned insult. The Spanish version matches the reference to poison but not the literary tone of the original. The Catalan coinage uses the suffix -arro meaning large and ugly, in a colloquial register.
Concluding remarks
With regard to the translation of Tolkien’s creative vocabulary, the Spanish translation has hardly any matching flourishes. It is almost entirely flattened. In contrast, in five of the seven cases, the Catalan translation resorts to prominent items of its own, though hardly matching in tone and substance, in general.
As we stated at the outset, flattening is the general case in literary translation. Creative translations, such as in the Catalan text, are in general poor matches for Tolkien’s original text.
In the final analysis, the cumulative effect of these small losses and variations is perhaps not very significant. Whatever the case, the original text and the translation are seldom analysed side by side as we have done here and readers will enjoy whatever is given to them, unaware of what has been removed or added.
References
Berman, A. and Venuti, L. (2021). Translation and the Trials of the Foreign. In The Translation Studies Reader (pp. 247-260). Routledge.
Carter, W. C. (2013). Lost in translation: Proust and Scott Moncrieff. The Public Domain Review. Retrieved from https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/lost-in-translation-proust-and-scott-moncrieff/ (December 2024).
Davis, N. (2023). That was thinking in Spanish: Translated style and interlingual strangeness in Hemingway. Arts of War and Peace. Retrieved from https://artswarandpeace.univ-paris-diderot.fr/2023/03/27/that-was-thinking-in-spanish-translated-style-and-interlingual-strangeness-in-hemingway/ (December 2024).
Hemingway, E. (2008). For Whom the Bell Tolls (L. G. Garibay, Trans.). Grupo Editorial Tomo. (Original work published 1940).
Jones, R. (2014). Conference interpreting explained. Routledge.
Tolkien, J. R. R. (1937). The Hobbit, or There and Back Again. George Allen and Unwin.
Tolkien, J. R. R. (2001). El hòbbit.. Translated by Francesc Parcerisas. Minotauro. (Original work published 1937
Tolkien, J. R. R. (1982). El hobbit.. Translated by Manuel Figueroa. Minotauro. (Original work published 1937
Tolkien, J. R. R. (1954–1955). The Lord of the Rings (3 volumes). George Allen & Unwin.
Tolkien, J. R. R. (1993). El Senyor dels Anells. Translated by Francesc Parcerisas. Barcelona: Editorial Vicens Vives.
Tolkien, J. R. R. (1993). El Señor de los Anillos. Translated by Lluis Domènech and Matilde Horne. Barcelona: Minotauro.
Venuti, L. (2017). The translator’s invisibility: A history of translation. Routledge.
