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Re: 20000 Leagues ? seas? League=?

From: Norm Wolcott <nwolcott2~at~kreative.net>
Date: Mon, 5 Apr 2004 16:51:31 -0400
To: "Jules Verne Forum" <jvf~at~Gilead.org.il>

And we miss your website.
nwolcott2~at~post.harvard.edu Friar Wolcott, Gutenberg Abbey, Sherwood Forrest
----- Original Message -----
From: "boutin" <boutin~at~versailles.inra.fr>
To: "Jules Verne Forum" <jvf~at~Gilead.org.il>
Sent: Monday, April 05, 2004 5:54 AM
Subject: Re: 20000 Leagues ? seas? League=?


> 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 - 22:54:15 IST

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