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Author
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Comment
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ikolpak
Unregistered User
(1/13/03 5:50:48 pm)
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Need help in translating a folk tale into English
I need a translation of short (very short) russian folk story
into English. I made a draft and I would appreciate your
corrections, comments, any help you can provide.
A Spotty Hen
One there lived an old man and his wife and they had
a spotty hen. One day the hen laid an egg and not a simple
egg but a golden one. The old man tried to break it and
couldn't and his wife tried to break it and couldn't,
a mouse went by, wagged her tail, the egg rolled, fell down
and broke. The old man is crying and his wife is crying
but the hen is clucking - Don't you cry grandpa, don't you
cry grandma, I'll lay a new egg, and not a golden but a simple
one.
And that's it!
Thank you!
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Helen
Registered User
(1/13/03 6:25:57 pm)
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Re: Need help in translating a folk tale into English
Dear Ikolpak:
Everything looks kosher to me, but it would help if you could say where the original version in Russian might be found. Good luck!
Best,
Helen
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ikolpak
Registered User
(1/14/03 10:29:22 am)
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Links to Russian original text
Here are some links to the original Russian text:
fairytaler.narod.ru/rusnar/16.htm
or
zhurnal.lib.ru/m/merkulow...doc.shtml
(first 3 paragraphs only)
or
www.kulichki.com/zritel/2...om740.htm
(second paragraph)
Have fun :-)
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rosemarylake
Unregistered User
(1/14/03 3:48:05 pm)
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Would you translate a Russian tale for me?
I'd like to get a translation made of "Daughter and Stepdaughter", the one about the bear and the blind man's buff game. It's short, and just any rough English would be ok.
Rosemary
r@rosemarylake.com
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Judith
Berman
Registered User
(1/14/03 8:12:51 pm)
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spots & speckles
Ikolpak,
My browser wasn't able to find or successfully load any of the links you provided, so I couldn't look at the original Russian, but my guess is that you probably mean "speckled," not "spotty" or even "spotted." Spotty in British English means pimply, and in American English it means something haphazardly or incompletely done. "Spotted" when referring to animals usually describes somewhat larger and more solidly-colored splotches than you see on a chicken -- a Dalmatian is a spotted dog, and I suppose you could call an Appaloosa a spotted horse, though I am sure there is a more technical horse term! In English, a "speckled hen" is a not uncommon type of hen.
Judith
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ikolpak
Registered User
(1/15/03 9:17:15 am)
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Corrected links to Russian text.
The links in my previous post got messed up,
the problem is with angle brackets and strange
ellipses in the middle.
Corrected links are:
fairytaler.narod.ru/rusnar/16.htm
or
zhurnal.lib.ru/m/merkulow...adoc.shtml
(first 3 paragraphs only)
or
letopis.kulichki.net/2002...nom740.htm
(second paragraph only)
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ikolpak
Registered User
(1/15/03 9:46:48 am)
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Re: spots & speckles
Thank you, Judith, that's exactly the kind of feedback
I was looking for. I guess you are right, one of the meanings
of the word in the russian text is 'marked by smallpox', and
this doesn't seem to imply spots. There is a picture of a hen
in one of the sites I've mentioned (I've posted corrected links),
and that will probably give you an idea of what we are talking
about.
There is one more thing though, and this one seems even
more challenging. There is some kind of word-play in Russian
text, kind of difficult to explain, but I'll try. In Russian there are
two forms of adjectives, long and short, and short adjectives
resemble nouns in form, therefore a transition or ambuguity
is possible, and this is exactly the case in Russian text.
The chain is (I'll use transliteration): Ryabaya kurochka
(standard usage with long adjective) -> Kurochka ryaba
(somewhat archaic with short adjective and inversion) ->
Kurochka Ryaba (short adjective becomes a proper nown).
I wonder if we can do something of the kind in English?
Something like: Spotted dog -> Dog Spotty -> Dog Spot?
Also is there a diminutive of a noun 'hen'?
Thank you,
Igor.
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Jess
Unregistered User
(1/15/03 10:50:15 am)
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Speckled
Chickens seemed to be described variously as mottled, spangled, barred, or lace-winged. We use "speckled" as a descriptive word for birds generally in the vernacular, but "spotted" is used in ornithology (see, e.g. "How to Know the Birds" Roger Tory Peterson). Hope this helps.
Oh, and thanks for updating the links. Unfortunately, my sister
is the one that reads Russian.
Jess
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Judith
Berman
Registered User
(1/15/03 11:32:37 am)
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Re: spots & speckles
Igor,
I still can't properly load these pages, but the problem is almost certainly with my somewhat outdated browser. Without them I can't examine your hen! My Russian-English dictionary gives "speckled" for ryabovatyi and for ryaboi, two meanings, "pitted, pocked" (ot ospyi, from smallpox) and "speckled" (s pyatnamu, with spots). I see also ryabchik, hazel-grouse or hazel-hen. I don't have a guide to European birds, but my Western NA bird-book describes the sharp-tailed grouse as "speckled." For ryab' itself my dictionary gives 1. (on water), "ripple(s)" and 2. (in the eyes) "dazzled."
The bird book talks about "barred," "streaked," "mottled," "speckled" and sometimes "spotted" or "banded" plumage -- the latter two being relatively large and clearly marked. So you could have a spotted hen, but the associated meanings of ryab' and derivates make me think more of barred or speckled -- like water ripples. For light on water you can also say in English, sun-dappled -- but dappled is one of those horse-terms.
If you used "chicken" in place of "hen" you could say "chick" as the English diminutive -- though that usually means baby chicken.
Hope this is at all helpful--
Judith
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Andrey
Bobev
Registered User
(1/15/03 11:47:36 am)
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Re: spots & speckles
That's an interesting topic. As far as I remember the Russian variant (I have read it a long-long time ago), it is quite rhythmical. Is it possible to keep the rhythm in English, I wonder?
You are right about "ryaba" - it's more archaic, but Russian is a synthetical language and English is analytical one - it has no cases. So in Old Russian the inversion would not have the same "accent" as in contemporary English - because the syntactical role of the adjective is morphologically ruled and the word order is not so important, I think. But, of course, the adjective could be substantivated. Is it written with capital letters in Russian?
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ikolpak
Registered User
(1/15/03 12:56:06 pm)
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Oh, that's becoming quite a discussion.
Thanks, everybody, I really appreciate your comments.
Judith, thanks for all the information, it seems that 'speckled'
is the word. The site with picture calls the hen a Bantham,
probably you'll be able to find a picture somewhere. It also
seems that I have to stay with 'hen', as 'chicken' and 'chick'
seem to imply young age, while the hen in the tale seems to
have an air of experience, even authority, something maternal.
Will it be allright with if I post a latinic transliteration here on
forum?
Also you will probably be interested in the fact, that in
Russian we have special names for horses colors, for example,
we called a black one 'voronoy' - from 'voron' (raven, note
the similarity, probably due to common indoeuropean ancestor).
And spotted horses have a very poetic name, for example,
white with (or 'in' as in Russian) apples! White seems to be
the only common color applied to horses.
Jess, thank you too, probably 'speckled' will do, I don't
want to sound scientific in a folk tale
Andrey, I tried to do my best to make it sound rhythmical
but I guess you can see my difficulties, English being my
second language, etc. I don't have an authentic text (if
such exists), I've seen both variants - with or without
capitalization. My opinion is that it should be capitalized,
but actually it doesn't matter much as it is from an oral
tradition, and children mostly get the tale by ear, not by
eye.
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ikolpak
Registered User
(1/15/03 1:06:30 pm)
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Are there other folk tales like this?
I'm pondering upon the phenomenon of such
short and 'abstract' folk tales. This one is
extremely popular is Russia and it is interesting
to understand why. It seems there's nothing there
but still there is something, although it is not so
easy to grasp (children seem to to it well, though).
Are there similar tales in other contries/cultures?
Thank you,
Igor.
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Jess
Unregistered User
(1/15/03 2:24:14 pm)
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Your chicken
Appears to be a Seabright Batham (sp?). For chicken varieties, I
like this sight (also useful for 4-H projects - lol). chickscope.itg.uiuc.edu/r...varieties/
The Hazel Hen is a "speckled bird" common in Bosnia, Slovakia, etc. It appears to be more pheasant-like than chicken-like (slender neck, no comb, light brown feathering, but very definitely speckled).
Igor,
Your tale reminds me of fables or parables, although the lesson is not explicitly stated, the most common English versions are found in the Bible (parables) or Aesop's fables (translated). Is this consistent with your understanding of these short, "abstract" folktales?
My guess is the tale is popular because it teaches children and others to value the real egg with its many uses, rather than the gold egg for its appearance (or monetary value). Why do you think it is popular?
Jess
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