Translations of "dude".

[unbibium]

Translating "dude" to other languages poses a problem for translators.

The author of the linked article usually just leaves it out, if it's part of a larger sentence. However, as we all know, "dude" also substitutes for entire sentences sometimes, such as "Hello," "Come here," "You blew it," or "Are you in the closet with a knife?" The difference between these are a combination of context, intonation, and non-verbal cues. The speaker knows that this combination provides enough semantic information, and doesn't want to be redundant or sappy by spelling it out, especially if their language skills are clumsy. Thus, translating "dude" to whatever sentence it implies doesn't quite sit right with me. But "dude" doesn't just provide a placeholder, but also reinforces the social connection between the speaker and the listener, and commanding the listener's attention. For that reason, perhaps the best way to translate "dude" as a sentence is to substitute the listener's first name, or most familiar form of address.

I must qualify this by saying that I have never translated anything substantial between languages, so excuse my ignorance of other considerations.

Comments

ranting ahead!

[darquis.livejournal.com]

Aha! We have a near perfect substitute in Polish.
"Staaaaary!" - Dude!
"Ssstaaary." - Duuude.
"O stary." - Whoa, dude.
I have nowhere near enough knowledge of Russian to translate anything into the language, but I have a sneaking suspicion that "давай" could be used in several instances of dudeness.

I guess it all boils down to the translator's knowledge of a particular group's speech patterns and vernacular. Me, I'd have serious trouble making my characters sound rich and educated, but I'm reasonably fluent in street talk; thus I can intuitively find the appropriate equivalents of "dude", "cool" and "your father's a motherfucker".

Accents and dialects, though... IMO it's pointless to use a local dialect where the original work used one; I can't remember which book it was where several characters from the American South have been made to speak in a Polish Highlands dialect and it hurt my eyes. The best adaptation of nonstandard speech patterns I've seen so far was in "The Color Purple" - intentional [and consistent, goddammit!] misspellings, creative punctuation and beautifully tailored syntax and vocabulary.
Yeah, that means some books are better off untranslated. If a scholar wants to read Wiech's stories of early-20th century Warsaw, zie might as well learn Polish and figure out the /very/ complex dialect for zirself, because it's impossible to do it justice in any other language.

Re: ranting ahead!

[pentomino.livejournal.com]

Well, people who type in dialect, using lots of apostrophes to suggest the accent, those really piss me off.

But, when performing something, pretty much anyone who speaks a language is going to have an accent compared to someone else. You don't want to make someone obviously Southern or obviously a New Englander, but I'd forgive a voice actor for dubbing someone as obviously uneducated, or obviously a surfer, etc. It's not going to be as bad as Robin Hood with an American accent.

Re: ranting ahead!

[darquis.livejournal.com]

Yeahbut.
Why use a ready-made dialect in /writing/? Sure it's tough to adjust your speech patterns, but in writing you can make up a legion of ways to convey a particular character's background or level of education without resorting to a set dialect in your target language. Say I'm translating a book about the Kashub minority in Poland - they speak a very weird patoislanguage that I barely understand - and I'm making every Kashub character speak AAVE. Would that feel weird to you? Sure would to me.

Apostrophes can add flavor when used in moderation. I like 'em. :P

Re: ranting ahead!

[pentomino.livejournal.com]

AAVE? I don't know. If it were dubbed, maybe they'd use the "Crazy Pollak" accent Steve Wozniak used for Dial-a-Joke. Hopefully it'd be more convincing than that guy doing the Smirnoff Ice commercials.

(Note to self: Woz met his first wife through Dial-a-Joke, by betting that he could hang up first.)

Apostrophes have their place, like in "'em", maybe. But I've read texts where "just" becomes "jes'" and so forth. Imagine every other word has something like that going on. Gah.

Is that as in "old"?

[vardissakheli.livejournal.com]

I've heard "молодец" used as if it weren't stilted and old-fashioned, but only by bilingual non-Russians. In Georgian, I've heard "ჯიგარო" ("jigaro"--literally "guts") but only occasionally.

[darquis.livejournal.com]

Yep, stary == lit. old. I'm gonna be on the lookout [hearout?] for possible equivalents on my next trip to Russia.

Wow. That is a very beautiful alphabet. *googles* Holy smokes, how complex. 0_o Impressive.

time-delayed response

[pentomino.livejournal.com]

BTW, there's a movie called "Topsy-Turvy" about Gilbert & Sullivan, as they wrote, produced and directed The Mikado. All the characters are Japanese, so when one of the actors affects a Cockney accent, he gets called out for it. He wanted to convey that that character was in a lower class. I don't know whether they found another way to do that, or just gave the servant the same accent as his master, because by then the movie was already in its fourth hour.