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Re: Flemish names in "Une Fantaisie du Dr. Ox"

From: Ralf Tauchmann <ralf.tauchmann~at~t-online.de>
Date: 15 Aug 2004 09:36 GMT
To: "Jules Verne Forum" <jvf~at~gilead.org.il>

"Zvi Har'El" <rl~at~math.technion.ac.il> schrieb:
> Perhaps you can help me with the following question: How do you pronounce the
> Flemish names in "Une fantaisie du Docteur Ox"? In particular, I wonder about
> the final E in family names like "Van Trikasse" (the mayor's family): Is it
> mute, or is it accented, i.e., should it be pronounced "tri-KAS" or
> "tri-ka-SAY"?
>
> The question is important for a Hebrew translation, where names must be
> transliterated correctly, since Latin letters cannot be used, and the
> transliteration is based on pronunciation.

Dear Zvi,

Sorry not for being able to give a conclusive answer, but it would
seem to me that the names are already phonetic descriptions in
French and that the names would have had an accent on the final "e"
(like the name Lotchè in the novel) for a long "e". This is what I conclude
from the counsellor's name "Niklausse", which seems to correspond
to "Niklas" (despite the 'o' sound).

By the way, how about the fictitious town's name "Quiquendone"?
Could we see an analogy to "Quiquengrogne" (tower in Saint-Malo
erected by Queen Anne despite the bishop's objections and showing
the inscription "Qui qu'en grogne, ainsi sera, c'est mon plaisir.") ?
(or Emile Chevalet's novel "La Quiquengrogne" ?)

It is always difficult to make a final decision how to handle
invented "descriptive" names when translating them into other
languages. "Qui qu'en donne" could be such a case (like Ox and
Ygène should be Ox and Ygen in English, German and ohter languages).
And "Tricasse" could be regarded as derived from "trique - triquer
- tricasser" (similar to "traquer - tracasser").

Very interesting in German: "le commissaire Passauf" is very
descriptive : "Passauf" means "watch out" / "take care".

So one could also consider to "change" certain names according to
their allusive capacity... In any case, one should consider the
French spellings to be informal phonetic transcriptions (although
I am doubtful about "Passauf" [o:f], because the germanic "a-u"
sound [English spelling e.g. "ow" like in "cow"] cannot be
reproduced in French, because inexisting)...

Kind regards,

Ralf Tauchmann
---------------------------------------------------------------
mailto:ralf.tauchmann~at~t-online.de
tel: +49-351-8336141 fax: -8336142
http://www.ratau.de ; http://brassens.basdorf.ratau.de
Sep 17-21, 2004 - Brassens Festival in Basdorf + Berlin
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Received on Sun 15 Aug 2004 - 13:52:15 IDT

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