Translation Etc

Translation Etc
We've had two or three days' rain during which I got back to the translation of Daniel's film on olive trees. The first (rough) translation was straightforward and is finished so now it's on to the details: polishing it and, finally, synchronisation and recording. I knew the latter would take time but it's now clear the first of these will too.

The problems start right at the beginning, a quote from Pliny the Elder stating that there are two “liquides” (wine and olive oil) particularly beneficial to man. “Liquids” is the obvious translation and will do but doesn't sound right. Bouncing this off friend Steve we came up with “fluids” which somehow sounds better but is still not ideal. I then thought: it's a saying by Pliny the Elder so look that up on the Internet. No joy; plenty of quotes of Pliny saying things about olive oil and wine but not that particular one. I could get back to the Latin and try my rusty Latin on it but decide against; it's a fine detail and I doubt my Latin is up to that.

Then......there's a man in the film carving a bowl from a chunk of olive wood. After doing a rough cut to shape on a lathe he takes first a chisel and then a knife to remove rough edges. The verb in French is “poncer”. Then he fits a round file attachment to a power unit and does the same to the inside of the bowl. The French verb is again “poncer”. I'm thinking: he chisels, he cuts, he grinds; and the translation is getting wordy. Trying the dictionary on “poncer” is no help. But there is a French instrument called a “ponceuse “ (I have one) to which you attach a strip of sandpaper for grinding away whatever. Maybe there's a clue there but I can't think what we call the thing in English. In desperation I look up the B&Q website to find out what it's called. It's a sander; so no help there then either. Finally, after several hours of musing in the back of my mind about chiseling, cutting, etc, I come up with “smooth”. What the guy is doing in all these different ways is smoothing the wood. It's obvious when I think about it (but I couldn't see the wood for the trees!) The trouble is that as my French gets more fluent my English gets less so. I begin to sympathise more with my mother who, at 93, is always struggling to find the right word.

Then.....there is a picture in the film of a number of ancient pots for storing olive oil; each has a different name in French (dioure, bombonne, etc). I could just call them pots but decide that something like “urns, ewers and pitchers” is probably much better; however, do we English have specific names for these things? I think it's unlikely as we don't have native olive oil and haven't had much imported until recently but I feel I'd better do an Internet search anyway. Again, no luck but I can't get rid of the obscure feeling that somewhere in England there's an expert (probably in the Victoria and Albert museum) who does know specific names in English for them. Life's too short...................

Then.....the film ends with a recitation of a poem by Jean Giono. Daniel is happy for this to remain in French but I'm not too sure about that. Now translation of poetry is a definite no-go area for me; it's just too difficult. But, maybe there's a translation of the poem on the Internet. I search. It seems very little of Jean Giono's work has been translated into English and certainly not this poem. No luck again. It occurs to me that I've spent an inordinate amount of time achieving very little; so the polishing of the translation is going to take a long, long time.

Footnote
The film The King's Speech is in the cinemas here now. The double-entendre in English is impossible to translate so I wondered what they'd go for for the French title. They've gone for (a) speech (discours) rather than manner of speaking.