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Arabian Nights

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Re: Arabian Nights

#111

Post by gjm11 »

GeoAtreides wrote: post #107
gjm11 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trouble with Burton isn't inaccuracy so much as unreadability , or at least clumsiness , because he translated into an idiosyncratic variety of English never used by anyone else before or since. Here's an example from the introduction to Dawood's translation, which I happen to have handy: "But she rejoined by saying, 'Allah upon you both that ye come down forthright, and if you come not, I will rouse upon you my…

English is my second language and I find his translation (and the fragment you quoted) clear, interesting and poetic. Reminds of King James Bible translation, which I also greatly enjoy.

One thing the KJV has in common with Burton's translation is a certain deliberate archaism -- its language was rather old-fashioned when it was published in 1610.

There's (obviously) absolutely nothing with liking deliberately archaic, slightly high-flown language. Personally I find it rather annoying in Burton but like it in the KJV, but different people have different tastes.

Though ... A lot of people who read the KJV are doing so not so much for the enjoyment of its literary style, but because they believe it to be the Word of God; unfortunately this means that many people are seeking divine enlightenment from a translation that (1) in many cases they don't understand well just because its language is hundreds of years separated from what they're accustomed to speaking and reading, and that (2) is based on now-outdated textual scholarship and therefore does a suboptimal job of reporting what the allegedly divinely inspired writers actually wrote. That seems unfortunate.

Re: Arabian Nights

#112

Post by webmobdev »

gjm11 wrote: post #87
vixen99 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazing how the 'almost unreadable' Burton's Thousand Nights continues to sell to this day, even on Kindle. As far as I can gather, there is plenty of sexual imagery in the original manuscript undoubtedly emphasized by Burton. Suggestions of really gross mis-translation or invention by Burton, seem to be thin on the ground.

The trouble with Burton isn't inaccuracy so much as unreadability , or at least clumsiness , because he translated into an idiosyncratic variety of English never used by anyone else before or since. Here's an example from the introduction to Dawood's translation, which I happen to have handy: "But she rejoined by saying, 'Allah upon you both that ye come down forthright, and if you come not, I will rouse upon you my…

The english translation that you quoted sounds very similar in nature to the english translation of Quranic verses. The Quran is kind of poetic in its language and hence its translation always sounds a bit odd. This makes me wonder whether the original Arabian Nights were also in the nature of a narrative poem?

Re: Arabian Nights

#113

Post by Wohlf »

gjm11 wrote: post #87
vixen99 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazing how the 'almost unreadable' Burton's Thousand Nights continues to sell to this day, even on Kindle. As far as I can gather, there is plenty of sexual imagery in the original manuscript undoubtedly emphasized by Burton. Suggestions of really gross mis-translation or invention by Burton, seem to be thin on the ground.

The trouble with Burton isn't inaccuracy so much as unreadability , or at least clumsiness , because he translated into an idiosyncratic variety of English never used by anyone else before or since. Here's an example from the introduction to Dawood's translation, which I happen to have handy: "But she rejoined by saying, 'Allah upon you both that ye come down forthright, and if you come not, I will rouse upon you my…

In fairness I believe Shakespeare also wrote his works in idiosyncratic English.

Re: Arabian Nights

#114

Post by bodhiandphysics »

masterphilo wrote: post #110
goto11 wrote: post #59

Fun fact about Arabian Nights: Some of the stories are only known from the French translation by Galland. By his own account he wrote them down (in French) based on narration from a Syrian Maronite storyteller who visited him in Paris. The well known story of Aladdin only exists in French - there is no known original in Arabic. Borges suggested Galland might simply have made up the story of Aladdin on his own, others…

> Folklorists have pointed out that the set of stories recorded from the storyteller have a number of story tropes more characteristic of European rather than Middle Eastern folk tales. Interesting, could you give us an example of these characteristics? Islamic and European societies during the period of these stories were different in unique ways, and for that reason I'm not exactly sure how those characteristics we…

So the crucial thing about story telling is that it’s not a literary genre. And that means that’s it’s often extemporaneous. In order to make up stories on the spot, storytellers use a body of elements (motifs, incidents, etc.) that they can dump in when they need them. Literary genres close to oral storytelling, like chivalric romance, the Sanskrit katha, and Arabian nights tales, usually keep this quality. (Btw, a good storyteller can do amazing things in this framework).

The issue with Alladin, Sinbad, and Ali baba, is that they lack most of the common motifs of Arabian nights tales (IE the slave whose mistake solves the problem, bedtricks, the sultan who solves everything, the discovered needed object) but do possess motifs very characteristic of 17 and 18th century French folktales (notably alladins rags to riches story, and the princesses cup trick). They also are less motif heavy in general! That doesn’t mean the translator made them up by the way... the resemblance to French folktales could be an accident, and they could be from another storytelling tradition, but they don’t seem like Arabian nights stories

Re: Arabian Nights

#115

Post by selimthegrim »

webmobdev wrote: post #112
gjm11 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trouble with Burton isn't inaccuracy so much as unreadability , or at least clumsiness , because he translated into an idiosyncratic variety of English never used by anyone else before or since. Here's an example from the introduction to Dawood's translation, which I happen to have handy: "But she rejoined by saying, 'Allah upon you both that ye come down forthright, and if you come not, I will rouse upon you my…

The english translation that you quoted sounds very similar in nature to the english translation of Quranic verses. The Quran is kind of poetic in its language and hence its translation always sounds a bit odd. This makes me wonder whether the original Arabian Nights were also in the nature of a narrative poem ?

Because NJ Dawood did a Quran translation as well

Re: Arabian Nights

#116

Post by gjm11 »

selimthegrim wrote: post #115
webmobdev wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The english translation that you quoted sounds very similar in nature to the english translation of Quranic verses. The Quran is kind of poetic in its language and hence its translation always sounds a bit odd. This makes me wonder whether the original Arabian Nights were also in the nature of a narrative poem ?

Because NJ Dawood did a Quran translation as well

That can't explain any similarity between what I quoted and English translations of the Qur'an -- because while what I quoted came from the intro to Dawood's translation of the Nights, what it is is a sample of Burton's translation (which Dawood quotes as an example of Burton's oddity).

Re: Arabian Nights

#117

Post by goto11 »

hassancf wrote: post #102
goto11 wrote: post #59

Fun fact about Arabian Nights: Some of the stories are only known from the French translation by Galland. By his own account he wrote them down (in French) based on narration from a Syrian Maronite storyteller who visited him in Paris. The well known story of Aladdin only exists in French - there is no known original in Arabic. Borges suggested Galland might simply have made up the story of Aladdin on his own, others…

Sorry for being blunt but: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence (of original texts in Arabic about Alaaddin that predate Galland etc). A lot of the original stories may be verbal oral and not necessarily written, another lot may be lost (burn libraries etc) and this all happened from 400 to 1000 years ago, so not exactly yesterday.

Indeed, this is why I say "no known original in Arabic."

But it is also possible that the Maronite storyteller was from a somewhat different storytelling tradition. Maronites are a Christian minority in the Levant which was traditionally involved in maritime trade, so they might have different sources for stories. In the end it is all guesswork since Gallard is the only known source of the story.

At one point a manuscript was found with Aladdin in Arabic, but it turned out to be an Arabic translation from Gallard!

Here is a great article about the question: https://ajammc.com/2017/09/14/who-wrote-aladdin/

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