Webcomic Pepper&Carrot's Latin translation

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I have never understood what need there is for any translation of anything into Latin, from a reader's point of view. I can understand why someone might want to translate something modern into Latin, as an exercise, but I can't fathom who would be the audience, given that there can't be many people ignorant of the language of the modern text but fluent in Latin, who would seem to me to be only ones who could logically be interested. Obviously I'm wrong.

Some translated works touch upon the realm of Romans or Latin. The Asterix comics, for example, play in the time of Caesar ... It could be possible that somebody who likes to read them (and who knows a bit of Latin) would be curious to see what they look like in Latin. And comics are easy to digest ...
It could be a similar thing with Harry Potter ... I can't really judge that because I've never read any of the books in English, but there seem to be a few spells in weird Latin and maybe it touches upon a few myths, so as to entice some interest in what it would look like in Latin? I don't know.

I suppose in most cases, the motivation for readers is similar to that of translators: These want to practice Latin composition with some of their favourite, those want to practice reading Latin with some of their favourite works ...

There are also people who try to read such stories in school on the grounds that they may elicit more motivation and that the stories are often already known (which especially facilitates the pre-reading phases). I'm not a great fan of that ... not only because a lot of translations are bad, but also because it defeats most of the purposes of learning Latin ... but maybe you can throw in a well-translated short story or an excerpt in the transition phase from the textbook to real literature.

What I would find interesting would be some free composition of new stories in Latin ... but no one seems to have tried his or her hands on that so far.
 

Pacifica

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Read here: https://www.davidrevoy.com/article729/peppercarrot-derivation-a-third-book-printed-by-glenat


Bolded for emphasis

Earlier episodes were written in French first, but later on, newer episodes are written in English first instead.
I see, thanks. I like knowing the original because I think it's better, in general, to base my translation on it rather than on a text that's already a translation. A translation can be useful as well, though, in case of any uncertainty in interpretation, to see how a previous translator has interpreted things, so I may still end up using both versions. For instance, when I translated Vathek into Latin, I based my translation on the original French but still consulted an English translation now and then when I was unsure of something.
What I would find interesting would be some free composition of new stories in Latin ... but no one seems to have tried his or her hands on that so far.
I would if I weren't so desperately uninspired.
 

Pacifica

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The Potion Contest — Certamen Potionum

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Ei, rursus obdormivi aperta fenestra.
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Quantus ventus!
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Cur autem Comonam* per fenestram video?

*It would be usual to Latinize the look of this name by turning the K into a C. However, if you need it to be a K to stay consistent with what other translators are doing, I guess it's about acceptable...
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Comona!
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Certamen potionum!
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Imprudens... Imprudens obdormivi, puto!
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At...
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Vbinam sum?!?
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Quac?*

*I guess it's OK to make up this onomatopoeic word, but the "k" looks outlandish in Latin.
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Carota! Amo te quod suscepisti ad certamen me ducere!*

*I'm open to suggestions, if anyone happens to know a better way to render "to have thought of".
 
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*I'm open to suggestions, if anyone happens to know a better way to render "to have thought of".

I don't know ... I could offer alternatives if you really wanted me to think of any (maybe you could also go with '... quod mei memor me ad certamen deducis'), but your translation seems very fine as is and I wouldn't want to mess with it.

I think you might have a bit too much prejudice towards the letter K, though :) It existed in the word 'Kalendae' and also in proper names like 'Karthago' (parallely to the Romanised 'Carthago'), so I wouldn't mind a proper name like 'Komona' ... I agree that 'quack' should be changed into 'quac', if possible, though.
 

Pacifica

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(maybe you could also go with '... quod mei memor me ad certamen deducis')
That exact same phrasing crossed my mind, too!

However, I abandoned the idea because I wasn't fond of mei... me.
I think you might have a bit too much prejudice towards the letter K, though :) It existed in the word 'Kalendae' and also in proper names like 'Karthago' (parallely to the Romanised 'Carthago'), so I wouldn't mind a proper name like 'Komona' ...
As far as I know, the letter K in Latin is used only before the letter A (maybe there are exceptions I'm not aware of).
 
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That exact same phrasing crossed my mind, too!

However, I abandoned the idea because I wasn't fond of mei... me.


Ah, ok ... I would not have minded that that much, but it doesn't matter much, anyway. As I said, I might come up with an alternative version, but necessarily with one that I think is better.

As far as I know, the letter K in Latin is used only before the letter A (maybe there are exceptions I'm not aware of).

I didn't actually know that. Thank you.

I still think you could go with K, inasmuch as you could probably take a few other liberties in a comic ... but I have no hard feelings for defending either K or C. I would leave it up to the person doing all the work :)
 

Pacifica

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Euge!
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Etiam potionem, vestem petasumque meum attulisti.
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Videamus quam potionem...
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Quid?!!
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Praefectus oppidi Comonae certamen potionum pronuntio... commissum!
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Magno cum gaudio oppidum nostrum ad hoc, quod nunc primum habetur, certamen accipit sagas numero quidem quattuor. Maximum, quaeso, date plausum:
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Certamen Potionum Comonense.
 

Iohannes Aurum

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Pacifica

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Eu is a diphthong, a single syllable; I'm not sure it can be broken up. I suppose you could split the word in two, though, eu-ge.
 

Pacifica

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There is no aposiopesis in the English original, why leave out the attuleris?
It seems natural enough to leave it implied from the previous attulisti. As in "You've brought a potion; let's see which one". I don't like the repetition.
 
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It seems natural enough to leave it implied from the previous attulisti. As in "You've brought a potion; let's see which one". I don't like the repetition.

Well, ok, that's fine :)
Just saying that the repetition is there in English as well even though it wouldn't be required :)
 

Pacifica

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Vsque e magna Technologistarum Societate, honori nobis est accipere suavissimam sollertissimamque Coriandrum!
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... Nec non et puellam nostratem, ipsius Comonae sagam Croceam*!
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... Tertia ad certamen accedit e terris lunarum occidentium Shichimi!
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... Denique novissima advenit e silva Limitis Sciurini** Piper!

*A masculine noun in -us as a girl's name would have been a little too weird, I felt, that's why I decided to turn "saffron" into the corresponding adjective in the feminine instead of using the noun crocus. Coriandrum feels kind of OK because you can find neuter-looking women's names borrowed from Greek.
**Perhaps it's possible to do something better with this.
 

Pacifica

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Just saying that the repetition is there in English as well even though it wouldn't be required :)
True, but I think English is somehow more tolerant of repetition than Latin. In English, it's fine to say something like "I'll eat an apple, you'll eat a pear and John will eat a plum". In Latin, three verbs there would make me cringe. I'd use only one.
 

Pacifica

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A potential issue with this project is that unless there's some sort of coordination, different translators translating different episodes is bound to lead to inconsistencies, notably in person and place names.
 
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It also leads to a crappy overall picture as the style (and accuracy) of translations will vary greatly.
 
 

Godmy

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One thing:

quālem ventum - the choice of the lexicon is bad (or well, possible, but not as good), I agree, quantus,a, um much better, but when it comes to the accusative, we have this sort of 'exclamatory accusative' in Latin, usually seen after the 'Ō' interjection and sometimes after 'ecce', I suppose it could be taken here as a sort of 'stranded exclamatory accusative', I wouldn't worry that much about that... although, of course, nominative hurts nothing.
 

Pacifica

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Maybe the translator was thinking of an exclamatory accusative, but exclamations with interrogative words (like qualis) are a different thing. An exclamatory accusative would be something like o ventum vehementem!
 
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