Jules Verne Forum

<jvf@Gilead.org.il>

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec 19961997199819992000200120022003200420052006200720082009

Re: 20000 Leagues ? seas? League=?

From: boutin <boutin~at~versailles.inra.fr>
Date: Mon, 5 Apr 2004 11:54:48 +0200
To: Jules Verne Forum <jvf~at~Gilead.org.il>

Cher Ralf,
Votre argumentation pour une traduction en anglais du titre "2O000
lieues sous les mers" en "Twenty thousand leagues under the sea" est
certes correcte d'un point de vue linguistique mais ne me semble pas
capable de rendre compte des intentions de JV (et Hetzel probablement)
quand ils ont choisi le titre définitif de cette oeuvre. Pourquoi
ont-ils choisi "2O000 lieues sous les mers" plutôt que "2O000 lieues
sous la mer" ou même "2O000 lieues sous les océans", le dernier titre
étant le plus exact des trois d'un point de vue scientifique? Parce que
"mers" avec un "s" ajoute au titre une dimension qu'aucun des autres
titres ne possède. "Mers" évoque pour le lecteurs : 7 mers, îles
parfumées, aventures, exotisme, vahinés, richesse, plaisir .... c'est
littéralement une métaphore ayant un fort contenu poétique, romantique,
etc ... qui par sa seule lecture entraîne le lecteur dans la rêverie et
qui a, certainement pour une bonne part, contribué au succès passé et
présent du roman. Même chose pour l'"Ile mystérieuse" mais pas pour
"Les Enfants du Capitaine Grant" pour ne parler que de cette trilogie.
Ma question aux traducteurs est : un "seas" n'a-t-il pas la même
puissance évocatrice en anglais que "mers" en français?
Jean-Pierre

PS, Sorry, I have not enough time to translate this text in a fully
understandable English.


Le jeudi, 1 avr 2004, à 07:48 Europe/Paris, Ralf Tauchmann a écrit :

> "Norm Wolcott" <nwolcott2~at~kreative.net> schrieb:
>> It should be pointed out that all of this confusion occurs only
>> because of using theEnglish system of measurement.
>> There is no marine kilometre!
>
> Dear Norm, dear all,
>
> Just some linguistic comments, because my vague impression is that
> the title, at least in French, shouldn't be understood too literally.
>
> The old Larousse (19th century) gives a long list of different
> leagues (lieues) in existence in France. I will not reproduce that
> here, but they vary between 3 and 5 km. What seems important in the
> French title is that both "twenty" (vingt) and "thousand" (mille)
> are words normally used to say "a lot", "very many". In French,
> at Jules Verne's time, "thousand leagues away from" (être à mille
> lieues de...) meant "I would have never imagined that...".
>
> I know that this remark is only relative, because Verne gives
> distances in his novels, but for the title, it certainly is
> something like "A long long journey under water".
>
> As to singular or plural, "sea" or "seas", I think that the French
> title
> of the novel is born from a simple antonymic idea : "sur les mers --
> sous les mers". The same English approach would give "under the sea".
> The plural in English seems to be common only in collocations like
> "seven seas" or "Southern seas". The disadvantage of the singular
> is the potential misunderstanding that the number (20,000) refers
> to depth (as is the case also in German). The plural is better in
> this respect, but seems a bit "artificial" linguistically, because
> unusual.
>
> What is also interesting is to see that "sea" is normally used
> metonymically as "sea level" (in French as well as in English
> or German). Otherwise, we should say "(with)in the sea". There
> actually is an older German translation saying "20000 Meilen
> unter dem Meeresspiegel". The disadvantage is that this way to
> put the tile places additional stress on depth.
>
> So I think, the singular is the better linguistic solution,
> because it is common use. The potential confusion as to
> depth or travel is not so critical. At school, "serious"
> teachers used to say, when I said Verne was my favourite
> author, that the ocean is not that deep (20,000 leagues).
> This is a "catch 22" situation, because: if you know the ocean
> is not that deep, how can you believe that the author meant
> that ? Language is never clear and you always need background
> knowledge to understand what is meant. A "paper model" is made
> of paper, but a "paper mill" is not. Who would dare say:
> Saying "paper mill" is silly, because the mill is not made
> of paper. So I think the singular is fine...
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Ralf Tauchmann
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
> mailto:ralf.tauchmann~at~t-online.de
> tel: +49-351-8336141 fax: -8336142
> http://www.ratau.de ; http://tauchmann.ratau.de
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
>
Received on Mon 05 Apr 2004 - 11:54:56 IST

JV.Gilead.org.il
Copyright © Zvi Har’El
$Date: 2009/02/01 22:36:11 $$