Talk:Translating The Lord of the Rings

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Translating The Lord of the Rings/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs) 11:18, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Reviewer: Kusma (talk · contribs) 18:12, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Reserving. Will try to review during the (long) weekend. —Kusma (talk) 18:12, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Many thanks. Looking forward to it. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:36, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Content and prose review

• Lead: will comment later.
  • Noted.

• The article assumes a general level of familiarity with LoTR that makes it difficult to read for others. I think I am not going to ask for a "background" section here but if you plan to nominate for DYK or FA you would need one.
  • Added.

• Challenges: I can't find "Westron" in Shippey, but I think I have access to the wrong edition only.
  • Glossed.

• Gloss Thomas Honegger.
  • Done.

• Translations in dialogue with Tolkien: MOS:DATERANGE advises against abbreviated year ranges such as 1956–7.
  • Fixed.

• "the Dutch version stayed largely unchanged except for the names of certain characters" anything interesting here? and what is the source for this statement? From [1], I assume that this is in Mark T. Hooker's published article and that changes are between the 1958 and 1996 editions?
  • Repeated the Hooker 2008 ref for clarity.

• "as of 2008, the only authorized translation" is a bit oddly sourced to a 2024 catalog search. Does Hooker comment on this?
  • Hooker can obviously only cover it up to 2008; it seemed worth showing that the claim remains true, hence WorldCat.

• The Dutch section is lacking in examples compared to the other languages.
  • Added a table.

• Swedish: consider using {{lang}} for the Swedish words to make screenreader users happy
  • Done.

• "Tolkien intensely disliked Ohlmarks' translation [..] , however," don't understand the "however" -- what is the contrast?
  • Removed.

• Is there anything worth saying about Lotta Olsson? (And in general about the practice of having separate translators for the poems?)
  • Nothing much, and I've not seen a source discuss the practice of hiring poets to translate poetry.

• Italian: Vittoria Alliata di Villafranca states (a) that she was only 17 years old and (b) that other publishers brought out the remaining volumes.
  • Added.

• German: The source for Carroux meeting the Tolkiens is a wiki. I think the best way forward is to get the claimed original source via WP:RX and use that to write a proper biography of Carroux (better sourced than the dewiki article). I have wanted to do that for a while, actually.Update: Asked at WP:RX.
  • Good idea.

More later! —Kusma (talk) 14:48, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

• More on Carroux: there are some mis-translations (says Stopfel), and some of them were her editor's fault. Not sure whether it is worth pointing out that some errors ("wild goose chase" being translated literally among them) were fixed in the 1991 reedition.
  • Article already says he corrects many errors.
    • OK, so indeed we say there are errors, and the 1991 version (fixing errors before Krege) is perhaps too much detail to include.

• Nothing more to say about Ebba-Margareta von Freymann? (Did Krege re-translate the poems or used hers?) Do we know whether all poetry was hers (even short snippets like "Ein Ring, sie zu knechten, sie alle zu finden // Ins Dunkle zu treiben und ewig zu binden", one of the few bits I still know by heart; "One ring to oppress them, to find them all, to drive them into the darkness and to bind them eternally"?) Fine if you don't know.
  • Nothing special; and no indication that Krege went for reuse. It seems she translated all the poems.
    • From a quick glance (I only checked Bilbo's poem about Earendil) it seems he reused the poems.
      • Added.

• French: It is a bit odd that the section begins by talking about the un-introduced "Vincent Ferré and colleagues" who said in 2011 that translation is difficult. Would it not be more natural to begin with the actual 1970s translation and only then talk about its critics?
  • Reordered, and introduced.

• The section is very focused on Ferré; is there anybody else who has commented on the French translation?
  • Not that I've seen. I understand he is a big cheese in the French Tolkien community.

• Russian: it would be nice to see the actual Russian, not just a back-translation. (The display of samples is a bit inconsistent between the various languages).
  • Noted. The format of the Russian table is to reflect Hooker's discussion and emphasis as shown.

• Hebrew: "[31][31][32]" citing [31] twice probably is unintentional; not removing it myself in case you mean something else.
  • Gone.

• Chinese: why use Western name order? The romanisation is also a bit nonstandard (Hanyu pinyin usually has no hyphens, and is rarely appropriate for Taiwanese people).
  • Used Chinese name order. If you want to tweak the transliteration, feel free, I've just followed the sources.
    • I'll have a look; would you mind if I also add names in characters (otherwise they are very ambiguous)?
      • Go right ahead.

• "Yilin's version" sounds a bit like Yilin is a person. Why not call it after the three translators? "Yilin uses" / "Yilin renders" / "Yilin follows" is also strange, especially since each of the translators was responsible for one volume. (Don't ask me whether that makes them fit together poorly).
  • Fixed. Again, I was following the source; and I note that Reinders also says "Yilin".
    • Indeed he does. Still seems weird to me, but perhaps it is just me.

• The Guide to the Names section could also come before the translations; what is your rationale for this section ordering?
  • I had scratched my head on this one. It can't really come completely before, as then it emerges without context like Hercules from the head of Zeus; it needs to be after Ohlmarks as he was the, hmm, grit in the oyster that provoked this particular pearl. I've moved it up there and reorganised it and the headings slightly.

First read through done. Lots of interesting content on individual translations and translation issues; I would hope for slightly more high-level overview. There are some more general studies (Turner's "A Theoretical Model for Tolkien Translation Criticism" in Tolkien in Translation seems to be one) but I have no overview of the state of Tolkien translation studies, which appear to be a subject in their own right, a bit like Alice in Wonderland translation studies. Comments on GA criteria to follow (most of the above was a general peer review, not a set of demands to fulfil for a GA green plus). —Kusma (talk) 10:44, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

• • Many thanks. The overviews we have, such as Turner and Honegger, do not really go into generalisations about what translators have done; rather, they either look at general Tolkien-created challenges, or they talk about what individual translators have done.
    • Fine. You may, by the way, enjoy this book about the Chinese translations. —Kusma (talk) 12:43, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
      • Looks interesting. I've used one snippet in the article.

General comments and GA criteria

Good Article review progress box Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV () 3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant () Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed

• Prose: Minor points above, most already addressed (will double check in a moment).
• MoS compliant, with the only question whether the long section on specific translations should be reflected better in the lead (not easy).
• Formatting of references is fine, and almost everything is from scholarly sources.
• The part about Tolkien and Carroux could be cited better: Tolkien writing the Guide can be cited directly, and the episode about Tolkien being ill when she visited has made it into scholarly literature (but who knows whether they were just copying Ardapedia or dewiki). I'll try to improve this bit myself when WP:RX comes back with more about Carroux.
• Broadness/focus are both adequate. Clearly this is not a comprehensive treatment (just one half-sentence about Japanese, nothing about some other translations) but it seems to represent most of the currently available scholarly treatment.
• Neutral in the translation wars :)
• Stable since list split off.
• Image copyright: no issues.
• One could argue about the relevance of the Lilith and Stalin images, but they pass.
• Sources: I checked a few and everything seemed to be there, except as indicated above.

Not much to complain about here. —Kusma (talk) 13:08, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

• I like the new structure.
  • Glad to hear it!

• Maybe you could cite the meeting of Tolkien and Carroux to Stopfel. That she was chosen because of her previous translation of Leaf by Niggle I could not verify yet, but the fact of the translation is easily checked.
  • Done.

• There is a free image of Vittoria Alliata di Villafranca (I think).
  • Added.

• I think a little bit more on individual languages in the lead (like the "too unified" style of Carroux and of the Spanish translation) would help make the lead complete.
  • Done.

• Clarify that Luis Domenech is the pseudonym, and es:Francisco Porrúa the real name. (You could use {{ill}} for some of the translators if you like).
  • Done.

I think I have run out of things to comment on :) —Kusma (talk) 21:08, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Many thanks for the review. Chiswick Chap (talk) 04:21, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.